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THE  FIGHT 
FOR  CONSERVATION 


By 

GIFFORD    PINCHOT 


NEW  YORK 

DOUBLEDAY,  PAGE  &  COMPANY 

1910 


ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED,  INCLUDING  THAT  OP  TRANSLATION 
INTO  FOREIGN  LANGUAGES,  INCLUDING  THE  SCANDINAVIAN 


COPYRIGHT,    iglO,   BY    DOUBLEDAY,    PAGE    Sc    COMPANY 
PUBLISHED     AUGUST,     IQIO 


I  Si 


/as 


CONTENTS 

Introd 

CHAPTER 

uction    ..... 

ix 

PAGE 

I. 

Prosperity    .... 

3 

II. 

Home-building  for  the  Nation 

21 

III. 

Better  Times  on  the  Farm 

31 

IV. 

Principles  of  Conservation     . 

40 

V. 

Waterways   .... 

53 

VI. 

Business         .... 

71 

VII. 

The  Moral  Issue  . 

79 

VIII. 

Public  Spirit 

89 

IX. 

The  Children 

lOI 

X. 

An  Equal  Chance 

109 

XL 

The  New  Patriotism     . 

120 

XII. 

The  Present  Battle 

132 

Index    

149 

INTRODUCTION 

The  following  discussion  of  the  conser- 
vation problem  is  not  a  systematic  treatise 
upon  the  subject.  Some  of  the  matter  has 
been  published  previously  in  magazines, 
and  some  is  condensed  and  rearranged  from 
addresses  made  before  conservation  con- 
ventions and  other  organizations  within  the 
past  two  years. 

While  not  arranged  chronologically,  yet 
the  articles  here  grouped  may  serve  to  show 
the  rapid,  virile  evolution  of  the  campaign 
for  conservation  of  the  nation's  resources. 

I  am  indebted  to  the  courtesy  of  the  editors 
of  The  World's  Worky  The  Outlook,  and  of 
American  Industries  for  the  use  of  matter 
first  contributed  to  these  magazines. 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 


THE  FIGHT 
FOR  CONSERVATION 

CHAPTER  I 

PROSPERITY 

'T^HE  most  prosperous  nation  of  to-day  is 
the  United  States.  Our  unexampled 
wealth  and  well-being  are  directly  due  to  the 
superb  natural  resources  of  our  country,  and 
to  the  use  which  has  been  made  of  them  by  our 
citizens,  both  in  the  present  and  in  the  past. 
We  are  prosperous  because  our  forefathers 
bequeathed  to  us  a  land  of  marvellous 
resources  still  unexhausted.  Shall  we  con- 
serve those  resources,  and  in  our  turn  transmit 
them,  still  unexhausted,  to  our  descendants  ^ 
Unless  we  do,  those  who  come  after  us  will 

[3] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

have  to  pay  the  price  of  misery,  degradation, 
and  failure  for  the  progress  and  prosperity  of 
our  day.  When  the  natural  resources  of 
any  nation  become  exhausted,  disaster  and 
decay  in  every  department  of  national  life 
follow  as  a  matter  of  course.  Therefore 
the  conservation  of  natural  resources  is  the 
basis,  and  the  only  permanent  basis,  of  na- 
tional success.  There  are  other  conditions, 
but  this  one  lies  at  the  foundation. 

Perhaps  the  most  striking  characteris- 
tic of  the  American  people  is  their  superb 
practical  optimism;  that  marvellous  hope- 
fulness which  keeps  the  individual  efficiently 
at  work.  This  hopefulness  of  the  American 
is,  however,  as  short-sighted  as  it  is  intense. 
As  a  rule,  it  does  not  look  ahead  beyond 
the  next  decade  or  score  of  years,  and  fails 
wholly  to  reckon  with  the  real  future  of  the 
Nation.  I  do  not  think  I  have  often  heard 
a  forecast  of  the  growth  of  our  population 
that  extended  beyond  a  total  of  two  hun- 
dred  millions,   and  that  only  as  a   distant 

[4] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

and  shadowy  goal.  The  point  of  view  which 
this  fact  illustrates  is  neither  true  nor  far- 
sighted.  We  shall  reach  a  population  of 
two  hundred  millions  in  the  very  near  future, 
as  time  is  counted  in  the  lives  of  nations, 
and  there  is  nothing  more  certain  than  that 
this  country  of  ours  will  some  day  support 
double  or  triple  or  five  times  that  number 
of  prosperous  people  if  only  we  can  bring 
ourselves  so  to  handle  our  natural  resources 
in  the  present  as  not  to  lay  an  embargo  on 
the  prosperous  growth  of  the  future. 

We,  the  American  people,  have  come  into 
the  possession  of  nearly  four  million  square 
miles  of  the  richest  portion  of  the  earth. 
It  is  ours  to  use  and  conserve  for  ourselves 
and  our  descendants,  or  to  destroy.  The 
fundamental  question  which  confronts  us 
is,  What  shall  we  do  with  it .? 

That  question  cannot  be  answered  with- 
out first  considering  the  condition  of  our 
natural  resources  and  what  is  being  done 
with   them  to-day.     As   a   people,   we   have 

[5] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

been  in  the  habit  of  declaring  certain  of 
our  resources  to  be  inexhaustible.  To  no 
other  resource  more  frequently  than  coal 
has  this  stupidly  false  adjective  been  applied. 
Yet  our  coal  supplies  are  so  far  from  being 
inexhaustible  that  if  the  increasing  rate  of 
consumption  shown  by  the  figures  of  the 
last  seventy-five  years  continues  to  prevail, 
our  supplies  of  anthracite  coal  v^ill  last  but 
fifty  years  and  of  bituminous  coal  less  than 
tv^o  hundred  years.  From  the  point  of  view 
of  national  life,  this  means  the  exhaustion 
of  one  of  the  most  important  factors  in  our 
civilization  within  the  immediate  future. 
Not  a  few  coal  fields  have  already  been 
exhausted,  as  in  portions  of  Iowa,  and  Mis- 
souri. Yet,  in  the  face  of  these  known 
facts,  we  continue  to  treat  our  coal  as  though 
there  could  never  be  an  end  of  it.  The 
established  coal-mining  practice  at  the  pres- 
ent date  does  not  take  out  more  than  one- 
half  the  coal,  leaving  the  less  easily  mined 
or  lower  grade  material  to  be  made  perma- 

[6] 


'  THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

nently  inaccessible  by  the  caving  in  of  the 
abandoned  workings.  The  loss  to  the 
Nation  from  this  form  of  waste  is  prodig- 
ious and  inexcusable. 

The  waste  in  use  is  not  less  appalling. 
But  five  per  cent,  of  the  potential  power 
residing  in  the  coal  actually  mined  is 
saved  and  used.  For  example,  only  about 
five  per  cent,  of  the  power  of  the  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty  million  tons  annually  burned 
on  the  railways  of  the  United  States  is  ac- 
tually used  in  traction;  ninety-five  per  cent, 
is  expended  unproductively  or  is  lost.  In 
the  best  incandescent  electric  lighting 
plants  but  one-fifth  of  one  per  cent,  of  the 
potential  value  of  the  coal  is  converted 
into   light. 

Many  oil  and  gas  fields,  as  in  Pennsyl- 
vania, West  Virginia,  and  the  Mississippi 
Valley,  have  already  failed,  yet  vast  amounts 
of  gas  continue  to  be  poured  into  the  air 
and  great  quantities  of  oil  into  the  streams. 
Cases   are    known   in  which   great  volumes 

[7] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

of  oil  were  systematically  burned  in  order  to 
get  rid  of  it. 

The  prodigal  squandering  of  our  mineral 
fuels  proceeds  unchecked  in  the  face  of  the 
fact  that  such  resources  as  these,  once  used 
or  wasted,  can  never  be  replaced.  If  waste 
like  this  were  not  chiefly  thoughtless,  it 
might  well  be  characterized  as  the  delib- 
erate   destruction    of   the    Nation's    future. 

Many  fields  of  iron  ore  have  already  been 
exhausted,  and  in  still  more,  as  in  the  coal 
mines,  only  the  higher  grades  have  been 
taken  from  the  mines,  leaving  the  least 
valuable  beds  to  be  exploited  at  increased 
cost  or  not  at  all.  Similar  waste  in  the 
case  of  other  minerals  is  less  serious  only 
because  they  are  less  indispensable  to  our 
civilization  than  coal  and  iron.  Mention 
should  be  made  of  the  annual  loss  of  mil- 
lions of  dollars  worth  of  by-products  from 
coke,  blast,  and  other  furnaces  now  thrown 
into  the  air,  often  not  merely  without  benefit 
but  to  the  serious  injury  of  the  community. 

[8] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

In    other    countries    these    by-products    are 
saved  and  used. 

We  are  in  the  habit  of  speaking  of  the 
soHd  earth  and  the  eternal  hills  as  though 
they,  at  least,  were  free  from  the  vicissi- 
tudes of  time  and  certain  to  furnish  per- 
petual support  for  prosperous  human  life. 
This  conclusion  is  as  false  as  the  term  "inex- 
haustible" applied  to  other  natural  resources. 
The  waste  of  soil  is  among  the  most  danger- 
ous of  all  wastes  now  in  progress  in  the 
United  States.  In  1896,  Professor  Shaler, 
than  whom  no  one  has  spoken  with  greater 
authority  on  this  subject,  estimated  that  in 
the  upland  regions  of  the  states  south  of 
Pennsylvania  three  thousand  square  miles 
of  soil  had  been  destroyed  as  the  result  of 
forest  denudation,  and  that  destruction  was 
then  proceeding  at  the  rate  of  one  hundred 
square  miles  of  fertile  soil  per  year.  No 
seeing  man  can  travel  through  the  United 
States  without  being  struck  with  the  enor- 
mous  and    unnecessary   loss   of  fertility   by 

[9] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

easily  preventable  soil  wash.  The  soil  so 
lost,  as  in  the  case  of  many  other  wastes, 
becomes  itself  a  source  of  damage  and 
expense,  and  must  be  removed  from  the 
channels  of  our  navigable  streams  at  an 
enormous  annual  cost.  The  Mississippi  River 
alone  is  estimated  to  transport  yearly  four 
hundred  million  tons  of  sediment,  or  about 
twice  the  amount  of  material  to  be  exca- 
vated from  the  Panama  Canal.  This 
material  is  the  most  fertile  portion  of  our 
richest  fields,  transformed  from  a  blessing 
to  a  curse  by  unrestricted  erosion. 

The  destruction  of  forage  plants  by  over- 
grazing has  resulted,  in  the  opinion  of  men 
most  capable  of  judging,  in  reducing  the 
grazing  value  of  the  public  lands  by  one-half. 
This  enormous  loss  of  forage,  serious  though 
it  be  in  itself,  is  not  the  only  result  of  wrong 
methods  of  pasturage.  The  destruction  of 
forage  plants  is  accompanied  by  loss  of  sur- 
face soil  through  erosion;  by  forest  destruc- 
tion;   by  corresponding  deterioration  in  the 

[10] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

water  supply;  and  by  a  serious  decrease 
in  the  quality  and  weight  of  animals 
grown  on  overgrazed  lands.  These  sources 
of  loss  from  failure  to  conserve  the  range 
are  felt  to-day.  They  are  accompanied 
by  the  certainty  of  a  future  loss  not  less 
important,  for  range  lands  once  badly  over- 
grazed can  be  restored  to  their  former 
value  but  slowly  or  not  at  all.  The  obvious 
and  certain  remedy  is  for  the  Government 
to  hold  and  control  the  public  range  until 
it  can  pass  into  the  hands  of  settlers  who  will 
make  their  homes  upon  it.  As  methods 
of  agriculture  improve  and  new  dry-land 
crops  are  introduced,  vast  areas  once  con- 
sidered unavailable  for  cultivation  are  being 
made  into  prosperous  homes;  and  this 
movement  has  only  begun. 

The  single  object  of  the  public  land 
system  of  the  United  States,  as  President 
Roosevelt  repeatedly  declared,  is  the  mak- 
ing and  maintenance  of  prosperous  homes. 
That    object    cannot     be     achieved    unless 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

such  of  the  public  lands  as  are  suit- 
able for  settlement  are  conserved  for  the 
actual  home-maker.  Such  lands  should 
pass  from  the  possession  of  the  Govern- 
ment directly  and  only  into  the  hands  of 
the  settler  w^ho  lives  on  the  land.  Of  all 
forms  of  conservation  there  is  none  more 
important  than  that  of  holding  the  public 
lands  for  the  actual  home-maker. 

It  is  a  notorious  fact  that  the  public  land 
laws  have  been  deflected  from  their  benef- 
icent original  purpose  of  home-making  by 
lax  administration,  short-sighted  depart- 
mental decisions,  and  the  growth  of  an 
unhealthy  public  sentiment  in  portions  of 
the  West.  Great  areas  of  the  public  domain 
have  passed  into  the  hands,  not  of  the 
home-maker,  but  of  large  individual  or  cor- 
porate owners  whose  object  is  always  the 
making  of  profit  and  seldom  the  making  of 
homes.  It  is  sometimes  urged  that  enlight- 
ened self-interest  will  lead  the  men  who  have 
acquired  large  holdings  of  public  lands  to  put 

[12] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

them  to  their  most  productive  use,  and  it  is 
said  with  truth  that  this  best  use  is  the  tillage 
of  small  areas  by  small  owners.  Unfortu- 
nately, the  facts  and  this  theory  disagree. 
Even  the  most  cursory  examination  of 
large  holdings  throughout  the  West  will 
refute  the  contention  that  the  intelligent 
self-interest  of  large  owners  results  promptly 
and  directly  in  the  making  of  homes.  Few 
passions  of  the  human  mind  are  stronger 
than  land  hunger,  and  the  large  holder 
clings  to  his  land  until  circumstances  make 
it  actually  impossible  for  him  to  hold  it  any 
longer.  Large  holdings  result  in  sheep  or 
cattle  ranges,  in  huge  ranches,  in  great 
areas  held  for  speculative  rise  in  price,  and 
not  in  homes.  Unless  the  American  home- 
stead system  of  small  free-holders  is  to  be  so 
replaced  by  a  foreign  system  of  tenantry, 
there  are  few  things  of  more  importance 
to  the  West  than  to  see  to  it  that  the  public 
lands  pass  directly  into  the  hands  of  the 
actual  settler  instead  of  into  the  hands  of 

[13] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

the  man  who,  if  he  can,  will  force  the  settler 
to  pay  him  the  unearned  profit  of  the  land 
speculator,  or  will  hold  him  in  economic 
and  political  dependence  as  a  tenant.  If 
we  are  to  have  homes  on  the  public  lands, 
they  must  be  conserved  for  the  men  who 
make  homes. 

The  lowest  estimate  reached  by  the  Forest 
Service  of  the  timber  now  standing  in  the 
United  States  is  1,400  billion  feet,  board 
measure;  the  highest,  2,500  billion.  The 
present  annual  consumption  is  approxi- 
mately 100  billion  feet,  while  the  annual 
growth  is  but  a  third  of  the  consumption, 
or  from  30  to  40  billion  feet.  If  we  accept 
the  larger  estimate  of  the  standing  timber, 
2,500  billion  feet,  and  the  larger  estimate 
of  the  annual  growth,  40  billion  feet,  and 
apply  the  present  rate  of  consumption,  the 
result  shows  a  probable  duration  of  our 
supplies  of  timber  of  little  more  than  a 
single  generation. 

Estimates  of  this  kind  are    almost    inev- 

[14] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

itably  misleading.  For  example,  it  Is  certain 
that  the  rate  of  consumption  of  timber  will 
increase  enormously  in  the  future,  as  it  has 
in  the  past,  so  long  as  supplies  remain  to 
draw  upon.  Exact  knowledge  of  many 
other  factors  is  needed  before  closely  accurate 
results  can  be  obtained.  The  figures  cited 
are,  however,  sufficiently  reliable  to  make 
it  certain  that  the  United  States  has  already 
crossed  the  verge  of  a  timber  famine  so 
severe  that  its  blighting  effects  will  be  felt 
in  every  household  in  the  land.  The  rise 
in  the  price  of  lumber  which  marked  the 
opening  of  the  present  century  is  the  begin- 
ning of  a  vastly  greater  and  more  rapid 
rise  which  is  to  come.  We  must  neces- 
sarily begin  to  suff'er  from  the  scarcity  of 
timber  long  before  our  supplies  are  com- 
pletely exhausted. 

It  is  well  to  remember  that  there  is  no 
foreign  source  from  which  we  can  draw 
cheap  and  abundant  supplies  of  timber  to 
meet  a  demand  per  capita  so  large  as  to  be 

[15] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

without  parallel  in  the  world,  and  that  the 
suffering  which  will  result  from  the  pro- 
gressive failure  of  our  timber  has  been  but 
faintly  foreshadowed  by  temporary  scarcities 
of  coal. 

What  will  happen  when  the  forests  fail  ? 
In  the  first  place,  the  business  of  lumber- 
ing will  disappear.  It  is  now  the  fourth 
greatest  industry  in  the  United  States.  All 
forms  of  building  industries  will  suffer  with 
it,  and  the  occupants  of  houses,  ofHces, 
and  stores  must  pay  the  added  cost.  Min- 
ing will  become  vastly  more  expensive; 
and  with  the  rise  in  the  cost  of  mining  there 
must  follow  a  corresponding  rise  in  the 
price  of  coal,  iron,  and  other  minerals. 
The  railways,  which  have  as  yet  failed 
entirely  to  develop  a  satisfactory  substitute 
for  the  wooden  tie  (and  must,  in  the  opinion 
of  their  best  engineers,  continue  to  fail), 
will  be  profoundly  affected,  and  the  cost 
of  transportation  will  suffer  a  corresponding 
increase.  Water  power  for  lighting,  manu- 
[i6] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

facturing,  and  transportation,  and  the  move- 
ment of  freight  and  passengers  by  inland 
waterways,  will  be  affected  still  more  directly 
than  the  steam  railways.  The  cultivation 
of  the  soil,  with  or  without  irrigation,  will 
be  hampered  by  the  increased  cost  of  agri- 
cultural tools,  fencing,  and  the  wood  needed 
for  other  purposes  about  the  farm.  Irrigated 
agriculture  will  suffer  most  of  all,  for  the 
destruction  of  the  forests  means  the  loss 
of  the  waters  as  surely  as  night  follows  day. 
With  the  rise  in  the  cost  of  producing  food, 
the  cost  of  food  itself  will  rise.  Commerce 
in  general  will  necessarily  be  affected  by 
the  difficulties  of  the  primary  industries 
upon  which  it  depends.  In  a  word,  when 
the  forests  fail,  the  daily  life  of  the  average 
citizen  will  inevitably  feel  the  pinch  on  every 
side.  And  the  forests  have  already  begun 
to  fail,  as  the  direct  result  of  the  suicidal 
policy  of  forest  destruction  which  the  people 
of  the  United  States  have  allowed  them- 
selves to  pursue. 

[17] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

It  is  true  that  about  twenty  per  cent, 
of  the  less  valuable  timber  land  in  the 
United  States  remains  in  the  possession  of 
the  people  in  the  National  Forests,  and 
that  it  is  being  cared  for  and  conserved  to 
supply  the  needs  of  the  present  and  to 
mitigate  the  suffering  of  the  near  future. 
But  it  needs  no  argument  to  prove  that  this 
comparatively  small  area  will  be  insufficient 
to  meet  the  demand  which  is  now  exhausting 
an  area  four  times  as  great,  or  to  prevent 
the  suffering  I  have  described.  Measures 
of  greater  vigor  are  imperatively  required. 

The  conception  that  water  is,  on  the 
whole,  the  most  important  natural  resource 
has  gained  firm  hold  in  the  irrigated  West, 
and  is  making  rapid  progress  in  the  humid 
East.  Water,  not  land,  is  the  primary 
value  in  the  Western  country,  and  its  con- 
servation and  use  to  irrigate  land  is  the 
first  condition  of  prosperity.  The  use  of 
our  streams  for  irrigation  and  for  domestic 
and  manufacturing  uses  is  comparatively 
[i8] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

well  developed.  Their  use  for  power  is 
less  developed,  while  their  use  for  trans- 
portation has  only  begun.  The  conservation 
of  the  inland  waterways  of  the  United 
States  for  these  great  purposes  constitutes, 
perhaps,  the  largest  single  task  which  now 
confronts  the  Nation.  The  maintenance 
and  increase  of  agriculture,  the  supply  of 
clear  water  for  domestic  and  manufacturing 
uses,  the  development  of  electrical  powO", 
transportation,  and  lighting,  and  the  creation 
of  a  system  of  inland  transportation  by 
water  whereby  to  regulate  freight-rates  by 
rail  and  to  move  the  bulkier  commodities 
cheaply  from  place  to  place,  is  a  task  upon  the 
successful  accomplishment  of  which  the  future 
of  the  Nation  depends  in  a  peculiar  degree. 
We  are  accustomed,  and  rightly  accus- 
tomed, to  take  pride  in  the  vigorous  and 
healthful  growth  of  the  United  States,  and 
in  its  vast  promise  for  the  future.  Yet  we 
are  making  no  preparation  to  realize  what 
we  so  easily  foresee  and  glibly  predict. 
[19] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

The  vast  possibilities  of  our  great  future 
will  become  realities  only  if  we  make  our- 
selves, in  a  sense,  responsible  for  that  future. 
The  planned  and  orderly  development  and 
conservation  of  our  natural  resources  is  the 
first  duty  of  the  United  States.  It  is  the  only 
form  of  insurance  that  will  certainly  pro- 
tect us  against  the  disasters  that  lack  of 
foresight  has  in  the  past  repeatedly  brought 
down  on  nations  since  passed  away. 


[20] 


CHAPTER  II 

HOME-BUILDING   FOR  THE   NATION 

'TpHE  most  valuable  citizen  of  this  or  any 
other  country  is  the  man  who  owns 
the  land  from  which  he  makes  his  living. 
No  other  man  has  such  a  stake  in  the  country. 
No  other  man  lends  such  steadiness  and 
stability  to  our  national  Hfe.  Therefore 
no  other  question  concerns  us  more  inti- 
mately than  the  question  of  homes.  Per- 
manent homes  for  ourselves,  our  children, 
and  our  Nation  —  this  is  a  central  prob- 
lem. The  policy  of  national  irrigation  is 
of  value  to  the  United  States  in  very  many 
ways,  but  the  greatest  of  all  is  this,  that 
national  irrigation  multiplies  the  men  who 
own  the  land  from  which  they  make  their 
Hving.     The  old  saying,  "Who  ever  heard 

[21] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

of  a  man  shouldering  his  gun  to  fight  for 
his  boarding  house  ? "  reflects  this  great 
truth,  that  no  man  is  so  ready  to  defend 
his  country,  not  only  with  arms,  but  with 
his  vote  and  his  contribution  to  public 
opinion,  as  the  man  with  a  permanent  stake 
in  it,  as  the  man  who  owns  the  land  from 
which  he  makes  his  living. 

Our  country  began  as  a  nation  of  farmers. 
During  the  periods  that  gave  it  its  character, 
when  our  independence  was  won  and  when 
our  Union  was  preserved,  we  were  pre- 
eminently a  nation  of  farmers.  We  can 
not,  and  we  ought  not,  to  continue  exclu- 
sively, or  even  chiefly,  an  agricultural 
country,  because  one  man  can  raise  food 
enough  for  many.  But  the  farmer  who 
owns  his  land  is  still  the  backbone  of  this 
Nation;  and  one  of  the  things  we  want 
most  is  more  of  him.  The  man  on  the 
farm  is  valuable  to  the  Nation,  like  any 
other  citizen,  just  in  proportion  to  his  intel- 
ligence,  character,   ability,    and   patriotism; 

[22] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

but,  unlike  other  citizens,  also  in  proportion 
to  his  attachment  to  the  soil.  That  is 
the  principal  spring  of  his  steadiness,  his 
sanity,  his  simplicity  and  directness,  and 
many  of  his  other  desirable  qualities.  He 
is  the  first  of  home-makers. 

The  nation  that  will  lead  the  world 
will  be  a  Nation  of  Homes.  The  object 
of  the  great  Conservation  movement  is 
just  this,  to  make  our  country  a  permanent 
and  prosperous  home  for  ourselves  and  for 
our  children,  and  for  our  children's  chil- 
dren, and  it  is  a  task  that  is  worth  the  best 
thought   and   effort   of  any   and    all   of  us. 

To  achieve  this  or  any  other  great  result, 
straight  thinking  and  strong  action  are 
necessary,  and  the  straight  thinking  comes 
first.  To  make  this  country  what  we  need 
to  have  it,  we  must  think  clearly  and  directly 
about  our  problems,  and  above  all  we  must 
understand  what  the  real  problems  are. 
The  great  things  are  few  and  simple,  but 
they  are  too  often   hidden   by  false   issues, 

[23] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

and  conventional,  unreal  thinking.  The 
easiest  way  to  hide  a  real  issue  always  has 
been,  and  always  will  be,  to  replace  it  with 
a  false  one. 

The  first  thing  we  need  in  this  country, 
as  President  Roosevelt  so  well  set  forth 
in  a  great  message  which  told  what  he 
had  been  trying  to  do  for  the  American 
people,  is  equality  of  opportunity  for  every 
citizen.  No  man  should  have  less,  and  no 
man  ought  to  ask  for  any  more.  Equality 
of  opportunity  is  the  real  object  of  our 
laws  and  institutions.  Our  institutions  and 
our  laws  are  not  valuable  in  themselves. 
They  are  valuable  only  because  they  secure 
equaHty  of  opportunity  for  happiness  and 
welfare  to  our  citizens.  An  institution  or 
a  law  is  a  means,  not  an  end,  a  means  to 
be  used  for  the  public  good,  to  be  modified 
for  the  public  good,  and  to  be  interpreted 
for  the  public  good.  One  of  the  great 
reasons  why  President  Roosevelt's  admin- 
istration was  of  such  enormous  value  to  the 

[24] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

plain  American  was  that  he  understood 
what  St.  Paul  meant  when  he  said:  "The 
letter  killeth,  but  the  spirit  giveth  Hfe.*' 
To  follow  blindly  the  letter  of  the  law,  or 
the  form  of  an  institution,  without  intelli- 
gent regard  both  for  its  spirit  and  for  the 
public  welfare,  is  very  nearly  as  dangerous 
as  to  disregard  the  law  altogether.  What 
we  need  is  the  use  of  the  law  for  the  public 
good,  and  the  construction  of  it  for  the  pub- 
lic welfare. 

It  goes  without  saying  that  the  law  is 
supreme  and  must  be  obeyed.  Civiliza- 
tion rests  on  obedience  to  law.  But  the 
law  is  not  absolute.  It  requires  to  be 
construed.  Rigid  construction  of  the  law 
works,  and  must  work,  in  the  vast  majority 
of  cases,  for  the  benefit  of  the  men  who 
can  hire  the  best  lawyers  and  who  have 
the  sources  of  influence  in  lawmaking  at 
their  command.  Strict  construction  neces- 
sarily favors  the  great  interests  as  against 
the  people,  and  in  the  long  run  can  not  do 

[25] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

otherwise.  Wise  execution  of  the  law  must 
consider  what  the  law  ought  to  accomplish 
for  the  general  good.  The  great  oppressive 
trusts  exist  because  of  subservient  law- 
makers and  adroit  legal  constructions.  Here 
is  the  central  stronghold  of  the  money 
power  in  the  everlasting  conflict  of  the  few 
to  grab,  and  the  many  to  keep  or  win  the 
rights  they  were  born  with.  Legal  tech- 
nicalities seldom  help  the  people.  The 
people,  not  the  law,  should  have  the  benefit 
of  every  doubt. 

Equality  of  opportunity,  a  square  deal 
for  every  man,  the  protection  of  the  citizen 
against  the  great  concentrations  of  capital, 
the  intelligent  use  of  laws  and  institutions 
for  the  public  good,  and  the  conservation 
of  our  natural  resources,  not  for  the  trusts, 
but  for  the  people;  these  are  real  issues  and 
real  problems.  Upon  such  things  as  these 
the  perpetuity  of  this  country  as  a  nation 
of  homes  really  depends.  We  are  coming 
to  see  that  the  simple  things  are  the  things 
[26] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

to  work  for.  More  than  that,  we  are  com- 
ing to  see  that  the  plain  American  citizen 
is  the  man  to  work  for.  The  imagination 
is  staggered  by  the  magnitude  of  the  prize 
for  which  we  work.  If  we  succeed,  there 
will  exist  upon  this  continent  a  sane,  strong 
people,  living  through  the  centuries  in  a 
land  subdued  and  controlled  for  the  service 
of  the  people,  its  rightful  masters,  owned 
by  the  many  and  not  by  the  few.  If  we 
fail,  the  great  interests,  increasing  their 
control  of  our  natural  resources,  will  thereby 
control  the  country  more  and  more,  and 
the  rights  of  the  people  will  fade  into  the 
privileges  of  concentrated  wealth. 

There  could  be  no  better  illustration  of 
the  eager,  rapid,  unwearied  absorption  by 
capital  of  the  rights  which  belong  to  all 
the  people  than  the  water-power  trust,  per- 
haps not  yet  formed  but  in  process  of  forma- 
tion. This  statement  is  true,  but  not  unchal- 
lenged. We  are  met  at  every  turn  by  the 
indignant  denial  of  the   water-power  inter- 

[27] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

ests.  They  tell  us  that  there  is  no  commu- 
nity of  interest  among  them,  and  yet  they 
appear  by  their  paid  attorneys,  year  after 
year,  at  irrigation  and  other  congresses,  ask- 
ing for  help  to  remove  the  few  remaining 
obstacles  to  their  perpetual  and  complete 
absorption  of  the  remaining  water-powers. 
They  tell  us  it  has  no  significance  that  there 
is  hardly  a  bank  in  some  sections  of  the 
country  that  is  not  an  agency  for  water- 
power  capital,  or  that  the  General  Electric 
Company  interests  are  acquiring  great  groups 
of  water-powers  in  various  parts  of  the 
United  States,  and  dominating  the  power 
market  in  the  region  of  each  group.  And 
whoever  dominates  power,  dominates  all 
industry. 

Have  you  ever  seen  a  few  drops  of  oil 
scattered  on  the  water  spreading  until  they 
formed  a  continuous  film,  which  put  an  end 
at  once  to  all  agitation  of  the  surface  ?  The 
time  for  us  to  agitate  this  question  is  now, 
before  the  separate  circles  of  centralized 
[28] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

control  spread  into  the  uniform,  unbroken, 
Nation-wide  covering  of  a  single  gigantic 
trust.  There  will  be  little  chance  for  mere 
agitation  after  that.  No  man  at  all  familiar 
with  the  situation  can  doubt  that  the  time 
for  effective  protest  is  very  short.  If  we  do 
not  use  it  to  protect  ourselves  now,  we  may 
be  very  sure  that  the  trust  will  give  here- 
after small  consideration  to  the  welfare  of 
the  average  citizen  when  in  conflict  with  its 
own. 

The  man  who  really  counts  is  the  plain 
American  citizen.  This  is  the  man  for 
whom  the  Roosevelt  policies  were  created, 
and  his  welfare  is  the  end  to  which  the  Roose- 
velt policies  lead. 

I  stand  for  the  Roosevelt  policies  because 
they  set  the  common  good  of  all  of  us  above 
the  private  gain  of  some  of  us;  because 
they  recognize  the  livelihood  of  the  small 
man  as  more  important  to  the  Nation  than 
the  profit  of  the  big  man;  because  they 
oppose   all  useless  waste   at  present  at  the 

[29] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

cost  of  robbing  the  future;  because  they 
demand  the  complete,  sane,  and  orderly 
development  of  all  our  natural  resources; 
because  they  insist  upon  equality  of  oppor- 
tunity and  denounce  monopoly  and  special 
privilege;  because,  discarding  false  issues, 
they  deal  directly  w^ith  the  vital  questions 
that  really  make  a  difference  v^ith  the 
welfare  of  us  all;  and,  most  of  all,  because 
in  them  the  plain  American  aWays  and 
everyw^here  holds  the  first  place.  And  I 
propose  to  stand  for  them  while  I  have  the 
strength  to  stand  for  anything. 


[30] 


CHAPTER  III 

BETTER   TIMES    ON    THE    FARM 

T?VER  since  I  came  to  have  first-hand 
knowledge  of  irrigation,  I  have  been 
impressed  v^ith  the  pecuHar  advantages  which 
surround  the  irrigation  rancher.  The  high 
productiveness  of  irrigated  land,  resulting 
in  smaller  farm  units  and  denser  settlement, 
as  well  as  the  efficiency  and  alertness  of  the 
irrigator,  have  combined  to  give  the  irrigated 
regions  very  high  rank  among  the  most 
progressive  farming  communities  of  the 
world.  Such  rural  communities  as  those 
of  the  irrigated  West  are  useful  examples 
for  the  consideration  of  regions  in  which 
life  is  more  isolated,  has  less  of  the  benefits 
of  cooperation,  and  generally  has  lacked 
the  stimulus  found    in    irrigation    farming. 

[31] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

The  object  of  education  in  general  is  to 
produce  in  the  boy  or  girl,  and  so  in  the 
man  or  woman,  three  results:  first,  a 
sound,  useful,  and  usable  body;  second,  a 
flexible,  well-equipped,  and  well-organized 
mind;  alert  to  gain  interest  and  assistance 
from  contact  with  nature  and  cooperation 
with  other  minds;  and  third,  a  wise  and  true 
and  valiant  spirit,  able  to  gather  to  itself 
the  higher  things  that  best  make  Hfe  worth 
while.  The  use  and  growth  of  these  three 
things,  body,  mind,  and  spirit,  must  all  be 
found  in  any  effective  system  of  education. 

The  same  three-fold  activity  is  equally 
necessary  in  a  group  of  individuals.  Take 
for  example  the  merchants  of  a  town,  who 
have  established  a  Chamber  of  Commerce 
or  Board  of  Trade.  They  have  three  objects : 
first,  sound  and  profitable  business;  second, 
organized  cooperation  with  each  other  to 
their  mutual  advantage,  as  in  settling  dis- 
putes, securing  satisfactory  rates  from  rail- 
roads, and  inducing  new  industries  to  settle 

[32] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

amongst  them;  and  third,  to  make  their 
town  more  beautiful,  more  healthful,  and 
generally  a  better  place  to  live  in.  Take 
a  labor  union  as  another  example,  and  you 
will  find  the  same  three-fold  purpose.  A 
good  union  admits  only  good  workmen  to 
membership  in  its  sound  body;  the  members 
get  from  the  Union  the  advantages  of  organ- 
ized cooperation  in  seUing  their  labor  to 
the  best  advantage;  and  in  addition  they 
enjoy  certain  special  advantages  often  of 
overwhelming  importance. 

The  practical  value  of  organization  and 
cooperation  is  obvious,  and  they  are  being 
utilized  very  widely  in  nearly  every  branch 
of  our  national  life.  But  what  is  the  case 
with  the  farmer .?  The  farmers  are  the  only 
great  body  of  our  people  who  remain  in 
large  part  substantially  unorganized.  The 
merchants  are  organized,  the  wage-workers 
are  organized,  the  railroads  are  organ- 
ized. The  men  with  whom  the  farmer  com- 
petes are  organized  to  get  the  best  results 

[33] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

for  themselves  In  their  dealings  with  him. 
The  farmer  is  engaged,  usually  without  the 
assistance  of  organization,  in  competing 
with  these  organizations  of  other  groups 
of  citizens.  Thus  the  farmer,  the  man  on 
whose  product  we  all  Hve,  too  often  con- 
tends almost  single-handed  against  his  highly 
organized  competitors. 

How  have  the  agricultural  schools  and 
colleges  and  the  Departments  of  Agriculture 
of  State  and  Nation  met  this  situation  ^ 
Largely  by  the  assertion,  in  word  or  in  act, 
that  there  is  only  one  thing  to  be  done  for 
the  farmer.  So  far  as  his  personal  educa- 
tion is  concerned,  they  have  tried  to  give 
him  a  sound  body,  a  trained  mind,  and  a 
wise  and  valiant  spirit.  But  so  far  as  his 
calling  is  concerned,  they  have  stopped 
with  the  body.  They  have  said  in  effect: 
We  will  help  the  farmer  to  grow  better  crops, 
but  we  will  take  no  thought  of  how  he  can 
get  the  best  returns  for  the  crops  he  grows, 
or  of  how  he  can  utilize  those  returns  so  as 

[34] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

ro  make  them  yield  him  the  best  and  happi- 
est Hfe. 

It  is  not  wise  to  stop  the  education  of  a 
boy  or  a  girl  with  the  body,  and  to  neglect 
the  mind  and  the  spirit.  But  we  have  done 
the  equivalent  of  that  in  dealing  with  farm 
Hfe.  Along  the  Hne  of  better  crops  we  have 
done  more  for  the  farmer,  and  have  done  it 
more  effectively,  than  any  other  Nation. 
But  we  have  done  little,  and  far  less  than 
many  other  Nations,  for  better  business 
and  better  Hving  on  the  farm.  Hereafter 
we  shall  need  in  State  and  Nation  not  only 
the  work  of  Departments  of  Agriculture 
such  as  we  have  now,  but  we  shall  need  to 
have  added  to  their  functions  such  duties 
as  will  make  them  departments  of  rural 
business  and  rural  life  as  well.  Our  Depart- 
ments of  Agriculture  should  cover  the  whole 
field  of  the  farmer's  Hfe.  It  is  not  enough 
to  touch  only  one  of  the  three  great  country 
problems,  even  though  that  is  the  first  in 
time  and  perhaps  in  importance. 

[35] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

or  course  we  all  realize  that  the  growing 
of  crops  is  the  great  foundation  on  which 
the  well-being  not  only  of  the  farmer  but 
of  the  whole  Nation  must  depend.  First 
of  all  we  must  have  food.  But  after  that 
has  been  achieved,  is  there  nothing  more 
to  be  done  ?  It  seems  to  me  clear  that 
farmers  have  as  much  to  gain  from  good 
organization  as  merchants,  plumbers,  car- 
penters, or  any  of  the  other  trades  and 
businesses  of  the  United  States.  After  we 
have  secured  better  crops,  the  next  logical 
and  inevitable  step  is  to  secure  better  busi- 
ness organization  on  the  farm,  so  that  each 
farmer  shall  get  from  what  he  grows  the 
best  possible  return. 

Consider  what  has  been  accomplished  in 
Ireland  through  agricultural  cooperation 
The  Irish  have  discovered  that  it  is  not  good 
for  the  farmer  to  work  alone.  Since  1894 
they  have  been  organizing  agricultural  soci- 
eties to  give  the  farmer  a  chance  to  sell  at 
the  right  time  and  at  the  right  price.     The 

[36] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

result  is  impressive.  In  Ireland  the  coop- 
erative creameries  produce  about  half  the 
butter  exported.  There  are  40,000  farmers 
in  the  societies  for  cooperative  selling,  which, 
as  we  know  in  this  country,  means  better 
prices.  There  are  about  300  agricultural 
credit  societies  with  a  membership  of  15,000 
and  a  capital  of  more  than  ^200,000.  In 
a  word,  in  Ireland,  which  we  have  been  apt 
to  consider  as  far  behind  us  in  all  that 
relates  to  agriculture,  there  are  nearly  1,000 
agricultural  societies  with  a  total  member- 
ship of  100,000  persons.  Since  1894  their  total 
business  has  been  more  than  ;^300,ooo,ooo. 

But,  after  the  farmer  has  begun  to  make 
use  of  his  right  to  combine  for  his  advantage 
in  selling  his  products  and  buying  his  sup- 
plies, is  there  nothing  else  he  can  do  ?  As 
well  might  we  say  that,  after  the  body  and 
the  mind  of  a  boy  have  been  trained,  he 
should  be  deprived  of  all  those  associations 
with  his  fellows  which  make  life  worth 
living,  and  to  which  every  child  has  an  inborn 

[37] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

right.  Life  is  something  more  than  a  mat- 
ter of  business.  No  man  can  make  his 
life  what  it  ought  to  be  by  hving  it  merely 
on  a  business  basis.  There  are  things 
higher  than  business.  What  is  the  reason 
for  the  enormous  movement  from  the  farms 
into  the  cities  ?  Not  simply  that  the  busi- 
ness advantages  in  the  city  are  better,  but 
that  the  city  has  more  conveniences,  more 
excitement,  and  more  facility  for  contact 
with  friends  and  neighbors :  in  a  word, 
more  life.  There  ought  then  to  be  attrac- 
tiveness in  country  life  such  as  will  make 
the  country  boy  or  girl  want  to  live  and 
work  in  the  country,  such  that  the  farmer 
will  understand  that  there  is  no  more  dig- 
nified calling  than  his  own,  none  that  makes 
life  better  worth  living.  The  social  or 
community  life  of  the  country  should  be  put 
by  the  farmer — for  no  one  but  himself  can 
do  it  for  him — on  the  same  basis  as  social 
life  in  the  city,  through  the  country  churches 
and  societies,  through  better  roads,  country 

[38] 


il 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

telephones,  rural  free  delivery,  parcels  post, 
and  whatever  else  will  help.  The  problem 
is  not  merely  to  get  better  crops,  not  mere- 
ly to  dispose  of  crops  better,  but  in  the  last 
analysis  to  have  happier  and  richer  lives 
of  men  and  women  on  the  farm. 


[39] 


CHAPTER  IV 

PRINCIPLES  OF  CONSERVATION 

'TpHE  principles  which  the  word  Con- 
servation has  come  to  embody  are  not 
many,  and  they  are  exceedingly  simple.  I 
have  had  occasion  to  say  a  good  many  times 
that  no  other  great  movement  has  ever 
achieved  such  progress  in  so  short  a  time,  or 
made  itself  felt  in  so  many  directions  with 
such  vigor  and  effectiveness,  as  the  move- 
ment for  the  conservation  of  natural  re- 
sources. 

Forestry  made  good  its  position  in  the 
United  States  before  the  conservation  move- 
ment was  born.  As  a  forester  I  am  glad  to 
believe  that  conservation  began  with  forestry, 
and  that  the  principles  which  govern  the 
Forest  Service  in  particular  and  forestry  in 

[40] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

general  are  also  the  ideas  that  control 
conservation. 

The  first  idea  of  real  foresight  in  con- 
nection with  natural  resources  arose  in 
connection  with  the  forest.  From  it  sprang 
the  movement  which  gathered  impetus  until 
it  culminated  in  the  great  Convention  of  Gov- 
ernors at  Washington  in  May,  1908.  Then 
came  the  second  official  meeting  of  the 
National  Conservation  movement,  Decem- 
ber, 1908,  in  Washington.  Afterward  came 
the  various  gatherings  of  citizens  in  con- 
vention, come  together  to  express  their 
judgment  on  what  ought  to  be  done, 
and  to  contribute,  as  only  such  meetings 
can,  to  the  formation  of  effective  public 
opinion. 

The  movement  so  begun  and  so  prose- 
cuted has  gathered  immense  swing  and 
impetus.  In  1907  few  knew  what  Conser- 
vation meant.  Now  it  has  become  a  house- 
hold word.  While  at  first  Conservation  was 
supposed  to  apply  only  to  forests,  we  see  now 

[41] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

that  its  sweep  extends  even  beyond  the 
natural  resources. 

The  principles  which  govern  the  con- 
servation movement,  like  all  great  and 
effective  things,  are  simple  and  easily  under- 
stood. Yet  it  is  often  hard  to  make  the 
simple,  easy,  and  direct  facts  about  a  move- 
ment of  this  kind  known  to  the  people 
generally. 

The  first  great  fact  about  conservation 
is  that  it  stands  for  development.  There 
has  been  a  fundamental  misconception  that 
conservation  means  nothing  but  the  husband- 
ing of  resources  for  future  generations. 
There  could  be  no  more  serious  mistake. 
Conservation  does  mean  provision  for  the 
future,  but  it  means  also  and  first  of  all  the 
recognition  of  the  right  of  the  present  genera- 
tion to  the  fullest  necessary  use  of  all  the 
resources  with  which  this  country  is  so  abun- 
dantly blessed.  Conservation  demands  the 
welfare  of  this  generation  first,  and  afterward 
the  welfare  of  the  generations  to  follow. 

[42] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

The  first  principle  of  conservation  is 
development,  the  use  of  the  natural  resources 
now  existing  on  this  continent  for  the  benefit 
of  the  people  who  live  here  now.  There 
may  be  just  as  much  waste  in  neglecting  the 
development  and  use  of  certain  natural 
resources  as  there  is  in  their  destruction. 
We  have  a  limited  supply  of  coal,  and  only 
a  limited  supply.  Whether  it  is  to  last  for 
a  hundred  or  a  hundred  and  fifty  or  a  thou- 
sand years,  the  coal  is  limited  in  amount, 
unless  through  geological  changes  which 
we  shall  not  live  to  see,  there  will  never  be 
any  more  of  it  than  there  is  now.  But  coal 
is  in  a  sense  the  vital  essence  of  our  civiliza- 
tion. If  it  can  be  preserved,  if  the  life  of  the 
mines  can  be  extended,  if  by  preventing 
waste  there  can  be  more  coal  left  in  this 
country  after  we  of  this  generation  have 
made  every  needed  use  of  this  source  of 
power,  then  we  shall  have  deserved  well  of 
our  descendants. 

Conservation  stands  emphatically  for  the 

[43] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

development  and  use  of  water-power  now, 
without  delay.  It  stands  for  the  immediate 
construction  of  navigable  waterways  under 
a  broad  and  comprehensive  plan  as  assist- 
ants to  the  railroads.  More  coal  and  more 
iron  are  required  to  move  a  ton  of  freight 
by  rail  than  by  water,  three  to  one.  In  every 
case  and  in  every  direction  the  conserva- 
tion movement  has  development  for  its 
first  principle,  and  at  the  very  beginning 
of  its  work.  The  development  of  our 
natural  resources  and  the  fullest  use  of 
them  for  the  present  generation  is  the  first 
duty  of  this  generation.  So  much  for  de- 
velopment. 

In  the  second  place  conservation  stands 
for  the  prevention  of  waste.  There  has  come 
gradually  in  this  country  an  understanding 
that  waste  is  not  a  good  thing  and  that  the 
attack  on  waste  is  an  industrial  necessity. 
I  recall  very  well  indeed  how,  in  the  early 
days  of  forest  fires,  they  were  considered 
simply   and   solely  as  acts  of  God,   against 

[44] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

which  any  opposition  was  hopeless  and  any 
attempt  to  control  them  not  merely  hope- 
;>  less  but  childish.  It  was  assumed  that  they 
[  came  in  the  natural  order  of  things,  as  inevi- 
tably as  the  seasons  or  the  rising  and  setting 
of  the  sun.  To-day  we  understand  that  forest 
fires  are  wholly  within  the  control  of  men. 
So  we  are  coming  in  like  manner  to  under- 
stand that  the  prevention  of  waste  in  all 
other  directions  is  a  simple  matter  of  good 
business.  The  first  duty  of  the  human  race 
is  to  control  the  earth  it  lives  upon. 

We  are  in  a  position  more  and  more  com- 
pletely to  say  how  far  the  waste  and  destruc- 
tion of  natural  resources  are  to  be  allowed  to 
go  on  and  where  they  are  to  stop.  It  is  curi- 
ous that  the  effort  to  stop  waste,  like  the  effort 
to  stop  forest  fires,  has  often  been  consid- 
ered as  a  matter  controlled  wholly  by  eco- 
nomic law.  I  think  there  could  be  no  greater 
mistake.  Forest  fires  were  allowed  to  burn 
long  after  the  people  had  means  to  stop  them. 
The  idea  that  men  were  helpless  in  the  face 

[45] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

of  them  held  long  after  the  time  had  passed 
when  the  means  of  control  were  fully  within 
our  reach.  It  was  the  old  story  that  "as 
a  man  thinketh,  so  is  he";  we  came  to  see 
that  we  could  stop  forest  fires,  and  we  found 
that  the  means  had  long  been  at  hand. 
When  at  length  we  came  to  see  that  the  con- 
trol of  logging  in  certain  directions  was 
profitable,  we  found  it  had  long  been  possible. 
In  all  these  matters  of  waste  of  natural 
resources,  the  education  of  the  people  to 
understand  that  they  can  stop  the  leakage 
comes  before  the  actual  stopping  and  after 
the  means  of  stopping  it  have  long  been 
ready  at  our  hands. 

In  addition  to  the  principles  of  develop- 
ment and  preservation  of  our  resources 
there  is  a  third  principle.  It  is  this:  The 
natural  resources  must  be  developed  and 
preserved  for  the  benefit  of  the  many,  and 
not  merely  for  the  profit  of  a  few.  We  are 
coming  to  understand  in  this  country  that 
public  action  for  public  benefit  has  a  very 

[46] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

much  wider  field  to  cover  and  a  much  larger 
part  to  play  than  was  the  case  when  there 
were  resources  enough  for  every  one,  and 
before  certain  constitutional  provisions  had 
given  so  tremendously  strong  a  position  to 
vested  rights  and  property  in  general. 

A  few  years  ago  President  Hadley,  of 
Yale,  wrote  an  article  which  has  not  at- 
tracted the  attention  it  should.  The  point 
of  it  was  that  by  reason  of  the  XlVth  amend- 
ment to  the  Constitution,  property  rights 
in  the  United  States  occupy  a  stronger 
position  than  in  any  other  country  in  the 
civilized  world.  It  becomes  then  a  matter 
of  multiplied  iijiportance,  since  property 
rights  once  granted  are  so  strongly  en- 
trenched, to  see  that  they  shall  be  so  granted 
that  the  people  shall  get  their  fair  share  of 
the  benefit  which  comes  from  the  develop- 
ment of  the  resources  which  belong  to  us 
all.  The  time  to  do  that  is  now.  By  so 
doing  we  shall  avoid  the  difficulties  and  con- 
flicts  which   will   surely   arise   if  we   allow 

[47] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

vested  rights  to  accrue  outside  the  possibility 
of  governmental  and  popular  control. 

The  conservation  idea  covers  a  wider 
range  than  the  field  of  natural  resources 
alone.  Conservation  means  the  greatest 
good  to  the  greatest  number  for  the  longest 
time.  One  of  its  great  contributions  is 
just  this,  that  it  has  added  to  the  worn  and 
well-known  phrase,  "the  greatest  good  to 
the  greatest  number,"  the  additional  words 
"for  the  longest  time,"  thus  recognizing 
that  this  nation  of  ours  must  be  made  to 
endure  as  the  best  possible  home  for  all  its 
people. 

Conservation  advocates  the  use  of  fore- 
sight, prudence,  thrift,  and  intelligence  in 
dealing  with  public  matters,  for  the  same 
reasons  and  in  the  same  way  that  we  each 
use  foresight,  prudence,  thrift,  and  intelli- 
gence in  dealing  with  our  own  private  aflFairs. 
It  proclaims  the  right  and  duty  of  the  people 
to  act  for  the  benefit  of  the  people.  Con- 
servation demands  the  application  of  com- 

[48] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

mon-sense  to  the  common  problems  for  the 
common  good. 

The  principles  of  conservation  thus  de- 
scribed —  development,  preservation,  the 
common  good  —  have  a  general  application 
which  is  growing  rapidly  wider.  The  de- 
velopment of  resources  and  the  prevention 
of  waste  and  loss,  the  protection  of  the 
public  interests,  by  foresight,  prudence,  and 
the  ordinary  business  and  home-making 
virtues,  all  these  apply  to  other  things  as 
well  as  to  the  natural  resources.  There  is, 
in  fact,  no  interest  of  the  people  to  which  the 
principles  of  conservation  do  not  apply. 

The  conservation  point  of  view  is  valuable 
in  the  education  of  our  people  as  well  as  in 
forestry;  it  applies  to  the  body  politic  as  well 
as  to  the  earth  and  its  minerals.  A  mu- 
nicipal franchise  is  as  properly  within  its 
sphere  as  a  franchise  for  water-power.  The 
same  point  of  view  governs  in  both.  It 
applies  as  much  to  the  subject  of  good  roads 
as  to  waterways,   and   the  training  of  our 

[49] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

people  in  citizenship  is  as  germane  to  it  as  the 
productiveness  of  the  earth.  The  appHca- 
tion  of  common-sense  to  any  problem  for  the 
Nation's  good  will  lead  directly  to  national 
efficiency  wherever  applied.  In  other  words, 
and  that  is  the  burden  of  the  message,  we 
are  coming  to  see  the  logical  and  inevitable 
outcome  that  these  principles,  which  arose  in 
forestry  and  have  their  bloom  in  the  con- 
servation of  natural  resources,  will  have 
their  fruit  in  the  increase  and  promotion 
of  national  efficiency  along  other  lines  of 
national  life. 

The  outgrowth  of  conservation,  the  inevi- 
table result,  is  national  efficiency.  In  the 
great  commercial  struggle  between  nations 
which  is  eventually  to  determine  the  welfare 
of  all,  national  efficiency  will  be  the  deciding 
factor.  So  from  every  point  of  view  conser- 
vation is  a  good  thing  for  the  American 
people. 

The  National  Forest  Service,  one  of  the 
chief   agencies    of   the    conservation    move- 

[50] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

ment,  is  trying  to  be  useful  to  the  people  of 
this  nation.  The  Service  recognizes,  and 
recognizes  it  more  and  more  strongly  all 
the  time,  that  whatever  it  has  done  or  is 
doing  has  just  one  object,  and  that  object 
is  the  welfare  of  the  plain  American  citizen. 
Unless  the  Forest  Service  has  served  the 
people,  and  is  able  to  contribute  to  their 
welfare  it  has  failed  in  its  work  and  should 
be  abolished.  But  just  so  far  as  by  coop- 
eration, by  intelligence,  by  attention  to  the 
work  laid  upon  it,  it  contributes  to  the 
welfare  of  our  citizens,  it  is  a  good  thing 
and  should  be  allowed  to  go  on  with  its  work. 
The  Natural  Forests  are  in  the  West. 
Headquarters  of  the  Service  have  been  estab- 
lished throughout  the  Western  country,  be- 
cause its  work  cannot  be  done  effectively  and 
properly  without  the  closest  contact  and  the 
most  hearty  cooperation  with  the  Western 
people.  It  is  the  duty  of  the  Forest  Service 
to  see  to  it  that  the  timber,  water-powers, 
mines,  and  every  other  resource  of  the  forests 

[51] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

is  used  for  the  benefit  of  the  people  who  live 
in  the  neighborhood  or  who  may  have  a 
share  in  the  welfare  of  each  locality.  It 
is  equally  its  duty  to  cooperate  with  all  our 
people  in  every  section  of  our  land  to  con- 
serve a  fundamental  resource,  without  which 
this  Nation  cannot  prosper. 


[52] 


CHAPTER  V 

WATERWAYS 

'  I  ^HE  connection  between  forests  and 
rivers  is  like  that  between  father  and 
son.  No  forests,  no  rivers.  So  a  forester 
may  not  be  wholly  beyond  his  depth  when 
he  talks  about  streams.  The  conquest  of 
our  rivers  is  one  of  the  largest  commercial 
questions  now  before  us. 

The  commercial  consequences  of  river  de- 
velopment are  incalculable.  Its  results  can- 
not be  measured  by  the  yard-stick  of  pres- 
ent commercial  needs.  River  improvement 
means  better  conditions  of  transportation 
than  we  have  now,  but  it  means  development 
too.  We  cannot  see  this  problem  clearly  and 
see  it  whole  in  the  light  of  the  past  alone. 

The  actual  problems  of  river  development 

[53] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

are  not  less  worthy  of  our  best  attention  than 
their  commercial  results.  Every  river  is  a 
unit  from  its  source  to  its  mouth.  If  it  is 
to  be  given  its  highest  usefulness  to  all  the 
people,  and  serve  them  for  all  the  uses  they 
can  make  of  it,  it  must  be  developed  v^ith 
that  idea  clearly  in  mind.  To  develop  a 
river  for  navigation  alone,  or  power  alone,  or 
irrigation  alone,  is  often  like  using  a  sheep 
for  mutton,  or  a  steer  for  beef,  and  throwing 
away  the  leather  and  the  wool.  A  river  is 
a  unit,  but  its  uses  are  many,  and  with  our 
present  knowledge  there  can  be  no  excuse 
for  sacrificing  one  use  to  another  if  both  can 
be  subserved. 

A  progressive  plan  for  the  development 
of  our  waterways  is  essential.  Pending  the 
completion  of  that  plan,  which  should  neither 
be  weakened  by  excessive  haste  nor  drowned 
in  excessive  deliberation,  work  should  pro- 
ceed at  once  on  some  of  the  greater  projects 
which  we  know  already  will  be  essential 
under  any  plan  that  may  be  devised.     First 

[54] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

and  foremost  of  these  by  unanimous  consent 
is  the  improvement  of  the  Mississippi  River. 
A  comprehensive  and  progressive  plan  of 
the  kind  we  need  can  be  made  in  one  way 
only,  and  that  is  by  a  commission  of  the 
best  men  in  the  United  States  appointed 
directly  by  the  President  of  the  United 
States. 

Such  a  plan  must  consider  every  use  to 
which  our  rivers  can  be  put,  and  every 
means  available  for  their  control.  It  must 
deal  with  such  great  questions  as  the  rela- 
tion of  the  States  and  the  Nation  in  the 
construction  and  control  of  the  work,  and 
with  terminals  and  the  coordination  of 
rail  and  river  transportation.  The  engi- 
neering difficulties  may  be  larger  than  any 
we  have  yet  solved.  The  adjustment  of 
opposite  demands  between  conflicting  inter- 
ests and  localities,  and  other  questions  of 
large  reach  and  often  of  great  legal  com- 
plexity will  tax  the  powers  of  the  best  men 
we  have.     No  part  of  the  work  will  require 

[55] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

greater  temperance,  wisdom,  and  foresight 
than  certain  questions  of  poHcy  and  law. 

I  have  observed  in  the  course  of  some 
experience  that  difficulties  originating  with 
the  law  are  peculiarly  apt  to  foster  miscon- 
ceptions. It  happens  that  the  Forest  Service 
has  recently  supplied  a  typical  example. 

Certain  men  and  certain  papers  have  said 
that  the  Forest  Service  has  gone  beyond  the 
law  in  carrying  out  its  work.  This  assertion 
has  been  repeated  so  persistently  that  there 
is  danger  that  it  may  be  believed.  The 
friends  of  conservation  must  not  be  led  to 
think  that  before  the  Forest  Service  can 
proceed  legally  with  its  present  work  all 
the  hazards  and  compromises  of  new  legis- 
lation must  be  faced. 

Fortunately,  the  charge  of  illegal  action  is 
absolutely  false.  The  Forest  Service  has  had 
ample  legal  authority  for  everything  it  has 
done.  Not  once  since  it  was  created  has 
any  charge  of  illegality,  despite  the  most 
searching  investigation  and  the  bitterest  at- 

[56] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

tack,  ever  led  to  reversal  or  reproof  by  either 
House  of  Congress  or  by  any  Congressional 
Committee.  Since  the  creation  of  the  For- 
est Service  the  expenditure  of  nearly 
^15,000,000  has  passed  successfully  the 
scrutiny  of  the  Treasury  of  the  United 
States.  Most  significant  of  all,  not  once 
has  the  Forest  Service  been  defeated  as  to 
any  vital  legal  principle  underlying  its 
w^ork  in  any  Court  or  administrative  tribunal 
of  last  resort.  Thus  those  who  make  the 
law^  and  those  vi^ho  interpret  it  seem  to  agree 
that  the  work  has  been  legal. 

But  it  is  not  enough  to  say  that  the  Forest 
Service  has  kept  within  the  law.  Other 
qualifications  go  to  make  efficiency  in  a 
Government  bureau.  A  bureau  may  keep 
within  the  law  and  yet  fail  to  get  results. 

When  action  is  needed  for  the  public  good 
there  are  two  opposite  points  of  view  regard- 
ing the  duty  of  an  administrative  officer  in 
enforcing  the  law.  One  point  of  view  asks, 
"Is    there    any    express    and    specific    law 

[57] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

authorizing  or  directing  such  action?"  and, 
having  thus  sought  and  found  none,  nothing 
is  done.  The  other  asks,  "  Is  there  any 
justification  in  law  for  doing  this  desirable 
thing?"  and,  having  thus  sought  and  found 
a  legal  justification,  v^hat  the  public  good 
demands  is  done.  I  hold  it  to  be  the  first 
duty  of  a  public  officer  to  obey  the  law. 
But  I  hold  it  to  be  his  second  duty,  and  a 
close  second,  to  do  everything  the  law  will 
let  him  do  for  the  public  good,  and  not  merely 
what  the  law  compels  or  directs  him  to  do. 
It  is  the  right  as  well  as  the  duty  of  a 
pubhc  officer  to  be  zealous  in  the  public 
service.  That  is  why  the  public  service 
is  worth  while.  To  every  public  officer  the 
law  should  be,  not  a  goad  to  drive  him  to 
his  duty,  but  a  tool  to  help  him  in  his  work. 
And  I  maintain  that  it  is  likewise  his  right 
and  duty  to  seek  by  every  proper  means  from 
the  legal  authorities  set  over  him  such  inter- 
pretations of  the  law  as  will  best  help  him 
to  serve  his  country. 

[58] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

Let  the  public  officer  take  every  lawful 
chance  to  use  the  law  for  the  public  good. 
The  better  use  he  makes  of  it  the  better 
public  servant  he  becomes.  One  man  with 
a  jack-knife  will  build  a  ladder.  Another 
with  a  full  tool-chest  cannot  make  a  footstool. 
The  man  with  the  jack-knife  will  often  reach 
the  higher  level.  I  am  for  the  man  with 
the  jack-knife.  I  believe  in  the  man  who 
does  all  he  can  and  the  best  he  can,  with  the 
means  at  his  command.  That  is  precisely 
what  the  Forest  Service  has  been  trying 
to  do  with  the  money  and  law  Congress 
has  placed  in  its  hands. 

Every  public  officer  responsible  for  any 
part  of  the  conservation  of  natural  re- 
sources is  a  trustee  of  the  public  property. 
If  conservation  is  vital  to  the  welfare  of  this 
Nation  now  and  hereafter,  as  President 
Roosevelt  so  wisely  declared,  then  few  posi- 
tions of  public  trust  are  so  important,  and  few 
opportunities  for  constructive  work  so  large. 
Such  officers  are  concerned  with  the  greatest 

[59] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

issues  which  have  come  before  this  Nation 
since  the  Civil  War.  They  may  hope  to 
serve  the  Nation  as  few  men  ever  can.  Their 
care  for  our  forests,  v^aters,  lands,  and 
minerals  is  often  the  only  thing  that  stands 
betw^een  the  public  good  and  the  something- 
for-nothing  men,  v^^ho,  like  the  daughters 
of  the  horse-leech,  are  forever  crying,  "Give, 
Give."  The  intelligence,  initiative,  and  stead- 
fastness that  can  withstand  the  unrelenting 
pressure  of  the  special  interests  are  worth 
having,  and  the  Forest  Service  has  given 
proof  of  all  three.  But  the  counter-pressure 
from  the  people  in  their  own  interest  is 
needed  far  more  often  than  it  is  supplied. 

The  public  welfare  cannot  be  subserved 
merely  by  walking  blindly  in  the  old  ruts. 
Times  change,  and  the  public  needs  change 
with  them.  The  man  who  would  serve  the 
public  to  the  level  of  its  needs  must  look 
ahead,  and  one  of  his  most  difficult  prob- 
lems will  be  to  make  old  tools  answer  new 
uses  —  uses  some  of  which,  at  least,  were 
[60] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

never  imagined  when  the  tools  were  made. 
That  is  one  reason  why  constructive  fore- 
sight is  one  of  the  great  constant  needs  of 
every  growing  nation. 

The  Forest  Service  proposes  to  use  the 
tools  —  obey  the  law  —  made  by  the  repre- 
sentatives of  the  people.  But  the  law  can- 
not give  specific  directions  in  advance  to 
meet  every  need  and  detail  of  administra- 
tion. The  law  cannot  make  brains  nor 
supply  conscience.  Therefore,  the  Forest 
Service  proposes  also  to  serve  the  people 
by  the  intelligent  and  purposeful  use  of  the 
law  and  every  lawful  means  at  its  command 
for  the  public  good.  And  for  that  intention 
it  makes  no  apology. 

Fortunately  for  the  Forest  Service,  the 
point  of  view  which  it  worked  out  for  itself 
under  the  pressure  of  its  responsibilities 
was  found  to  be  that  of  the  Supreme  Court. 
In  the  case  of  the  U.  S.  vs.  Macdaniel 
(7  Pet.,  13-14),  involving  the  administra- 
tive powers  of  the  head  of  a  Department, 
[61] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

the    Supreme    Court  of  the   United    States 
said: 

"He  is  limited  in  the  exercise  of  his 
powers  by  the  law;  but  it  does  not 
follow  that  he  must  show  statutory 
provision  for  everything  he  does.  No 
government  could  be  administered  on 
such  principles.  To  attempt  to  regu- 
late, by  law,  the  minute  movements 
of  every  part  of  the  complicated  machin- 
ery of  government,  would  evince  a 
most  unpardonable  ignorance  on  the 
subject.  Whilst  the  great  outlines  of 
its  movements  may  be  marked  out, 
and  limitations  imposed  on  the  exer- 
cise of  its  powers,  there  are  numberless 
things  which  must  be  done,  that  can 
neither  be  anticipated  nor  defined,  and 
which  are  essential  to  the  proper  action 
of  the  government." 

Congress   has   given   to  the   Secretary   of 
Agriculture,  acting  through  the  Forest  Serv- 
[62] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

ice,  the  specific  task  of  administering  the 
National  Forests,  with  full  power  to  perform 
it,  and  has  provided  that  he  "may  make 
such  rules  and  regulations  and  establish 
such  service  as  will  ensure  the  objects  of 
said  reservations,  namely,  to  regulate  their 
occupancy  and  use  and  to  preserve  the 
forests  thereon  from  destruction."  Every 
exercise  of  the  powers  granted  to  the  Secre- 
tary of  Agriculture  by  statute  has  been  in 
accordance  with  the  principles  laid  down 
by  Chief  Justice  Marshall  ninety  years  ago 
in  the  case  of  McCulloch  vs.  Maryland  (4 
Wheat.,  421),  when  he  said  as  to  powers 
delegated  by  the  Federal  Constitution  to 
Congress : 

"Let  the  end  be  legitimate,  let  it  be 
within  the  scope  of  the  Constitution, 
and  all  means  which  are  appropriate, 
which  are  plainly  adapted  to  that  end, 
which  are  not  prohibited,  but  consist 
with  the  letter  and  spirit  of  the  Consti- 
tution, are  constitutional." 

[63] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

After  the  transfer  of  the  National  Forests 
from  the  Interior  Department  to  the  Forest 
Service  in  1905,  some  things  were  done  that 
had  never  been  done  before,  such  as  initiating 
Government  control  over  water-power  mon- 
opoly in  the  National  Forests,  giving  prefer- 
ence to  the  public  over  commercial  cor- 
porations in  the  use  of  the  Forests,  and 
trying  to  help  the  small  man  make  a  living 
rather  than  the  big  man  make  a  profit  (but 
always  with  the  effort  to  be  just  to  both). 
Always  and  everywhere  we  have  set  the 
public  welfare  above  the  advantage  of  the 
special  interests. 

Because  it  did  these  things  the  Forest 
Service  has  made  enemies,  of  some  of  whom 
it  is  justly  proud.  It  has  been  easy  for  these 
enemies  to  raise  the  cry  of  illegality,  novelty, 
and  excess  of  zeal.  But  in  every  instance 
the  Service  has  been  fortified  either  by  express 
statutes,  or  by  decisions  of  the  Supreme 
Court  and  other  courts,  of  the  Secretary  of 
the  Interior,  of  the  Comptroller,  or  the  Attor- 

[64] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

ney-General,  or  by  general  principles  of 
law  which  are  beyond  dispute.  If  there  is 
novelty,  it  consists  simply  in  the  way  these 
statutes,  decisions,  and  principles  have  been 
used  to  protect  the  public.  The  law  officers 
of  the  Forest  Service  have  had  the  Nation 
for  their  client,  and  they  are  proud  to  work 
as  zealously  for  the  public  as  they  would  in 
private  practice  for  a  fee. 

So  I  think  the  ghost  of  illegality  in  the 
Forest  Service  may  fairly  be  laid  at  rest. 
But  it  is  not  the  only  one  which  is  clouding 
the  issues  of  conservation  in  the  public 
mind.  Another  misconception  is  that  the 
friends  of  conservation  are  trying  to  pre- 
vent the  development  of  water  power  by 
private  capital.  Nothing  could  be  farther 
from  the  truth.  The  friends  of  conserva- 
tion were  the  first  to  call  public  attention 
to  the  enormous  saving  to  the  Nation  which 
follows  the  substitution  of  the  power  of  fall- 
ing water,  which  is  constantly  renewed,  for 
our    coal,    which    can    never    be    renewed. 

[65] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

They  favor  development  by  private  capital 
and  not  by  the  Government,  but  they  also 
favor  attaching  such  reasonable  conditions 
to  the  right  to  develop  as  w^ill  protect  the 
public  and  control  water-pov^er  monopoly 
in  the  pubHc  interest,  w^hile  at  the  same 
time  giving  to  enterprising  capital  its  just 
and  full  reward.  They  believe  that  to  grant 
rights  to  w^ater  pov^^er  in  perpetuity  is  a 
wrongful  mortgage  of  the  welfare  of  our 
descendants,  and  to  grant  them  without 
insisting  on  some  return  for  value  received 
is  to  rob  ourselves, 

I  believe  in  dividends  for  the  people  as 
well  as  taxes.  Fifty  years  is  long  enough 
for  the  certainty  of  profitable  investment  in 
water  power,  and  to  fix  on  the  amount  of 
return  that  will  be  fair  to  the  pubHc  and  the 
corporation  is  not  impossible.  What  city 
does  not  regret  some  ill-considered  franchise  .'' 
And  why  should  not  the  Nation  profit  by 
the  experience  of  its  citizens  ? 

There  is  no  reason  why  the  water-power 
[66] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

interests  should  be  given  the  people's 
property  freely  and  forever  except  that  they 
would  like  to  have  it  that  way.  I  suspect 
that  the  mere  wishes  of  the  special  interests, 
although  they  have  been  the  mainspring 
of  much  public  action  for  many  years, 
have  begun  to  lose  their  compelling  power. 
A  good  way  to  begin  to  regulate  corpora- 
tions would  be  to  stop  them  from  regulating 
us. 

The  sober  fact  is  that  here  is  the  imminent 
battle-ground  in  the  endless  contest  for  the 
rights  of  the  people.  Nothing  that  can  be 
said  or  done  will  suffice  to  postpone  longer 
the  active  phases  of  this  fight;  and  that  is 
why  I  attach  so  great  importance  to  the 
attitude  of  administrative  officers  in  pro- 
tecting the  public  welfare  in  the  enforce- 
ment of  the  law. 

From  time  to  time  a  few  strong  leaders 
have  tried  to  unite  the  people  in  the  fight  of 
the  many  for  the  equal  opportunities  to  which 
they  are  entitled.     But  the  people  have  only 

[67] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

just  begun  to  take  this  fight  in  earnest. 
They  have  not  reaHzed  until  recently  the 
vital  importance  and  far-reaching  conse- 
quences of  their  own  passive  position. 

Now  that  the  fight  is  passing  into  an 
acute  stage  it  is  easily  seen  that  the  special 
interests  have  used  the  period  of  public 
indifference  to  manoeuvre  themselves  into  a 
position  of  exceeding  strength.  In  the  first 
place,  the  Constitutional  position  of  prop- 
erty in  the  United  States  is  stronger  than 
in  any  other  nation.  In  the  second  place, 
it  is  well  understood  that  the  influence  of 
the  corporations  in  our  law-making  bodies 
is  usually  excessive,  not  seldom  to  the  point 
of  defeating  the  will  of  the  people  steadily 
and  with  ease.  In  the  third  place,  cases 
are  not  unknown  in  which  the  special  inter- 
ests, not  satisfied  with  making  the  laws, 
have  assumed  also  to  interpret  them,  through 
that  worst  of  evils  in  the  body  politic,  an 
unjust  judge. 

When  an  interest  or  an  enemy  is  entrenched 
[68] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

in  a  position  rendered  impregnable  against 
an  expected  mode  of  attack,  there  is  but 
one  remedy,  to  shift  the  ground  and  follow 
lines  against  which  no  preparation  has  been 
made.  Fortunately  for  us,  the  special  inter- 
ests, with  a  blindness  which  naturally  follows 
from  their  wholly  commercialized  point  of 
view,  have  failed  to  see  the  essential  fact 
in  this  great  conflict.  They  do  not  under- 
stand that  this  is  far  more  than  an  eco- 
nomic question,  that  in  its  essence  and  in 
every  essential  characteristic  it  is  a  moral 
question. 

The  present  economic  order,  with  its  face 
turned  away  from  equality  of  opportunity, 
involves  a  bitter  moral  wrong,  which  must 
be  corrected  for  moral  reasons  and  along 
moral  lines.  It  must  be  corrected  with 
justness  and  firmness,  but  not  bitterly,  for 
that  would  be  to  lower  the  Nation  to  the 
moral  level  of  the  evil  which  we  have  set 
ourselves  to  fight. 

This  is  the  doctrine  of  the  Square  Deal. 

[69] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

It  contains  the  germ  of  industrial  liberty. 
Its  partisans  are  the  many,  its  opponents 
are  the  few.  I  am  firm  in  the  faith  that 
the  great  majority  of  our  people  are  Square 
Dealers. 


[-70] 


CHAPTER  VI 

BUSINESS 

^  I  ^HE  business  of  the  people  of  the  United 
States,  performed  by  the  Government 
of  the  United  States,  is  a  vast  and  a  most 
important  one;  it  is  the  house-keeping 
of  the  American  Nation.  As  a  business 
proposition  it  does  not  attract  anything  Hke 
the  attention  that  it  ought.  Unfortunately 
we  have  come  into  the  habit  of  considering 
the  Government  of  the  United  States  as  a 
political  organization  rather  than  as  a  busi- 
ness organization. 

Now  this  question,  which  the  Governors 
of  the  States  and  the  representatives  of  great 
interests  were  called  to  Washington  to  con- 
sider in  1908,  is  fundamentally  a  business 
question,  and  it  is  along  business  lines  that  it 

I71] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

must  be  considered  and  solved,  if  the  problem 
is  to  be  solved  at  all.  Manufacturers  are 
dealing  w^ith  the  necessity  for  producing  a 
definite  output  as  a  result  of  definite  expen- 
diture and  definite  effort.  The  Govern- 
ment of  the  United  States  is  doing  exactly 
the  same  thing.  The  manufacturer's  pro- 
duct can  be  measured  in  dollars  and  cents. 
The  product  of  the  Government  of  the  United 
States  can  be  measured  partly  in  dollars  and 
cents,  but  far  more  importantly  in  the 
w^elfare  and  contentment  and  happiness  of 
the  people  over  which  it  is  called  upon  to 
preside. 

The  keynote  of  that  Conservation  Con- 
ference in  Washington  was  forethought  and 
foresight.  The  keynote  of  success  in  any 
line  of  life,  or  one  of  the  great  keynotes, 
must  be  forethought  and  foresight.  If  we, 
as  a  Nation,  are  to  continue  the  wonder- 
ful growth  we  have  had,  it  is  forethought 
and  foresight  which  must  give  us  the  capac- 
ity to  go  on   as  we    have    been    going.     I 

[72] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

dwell  on  this  because  it  seems  to  me  to  be  one 
of  the  most  curious  of  all  things  in  the  history 
of  the  United  States  to-day  that  we  should 
have  grasped  this  principle  so  tremen- 
dously and  so  vigorously  in  our  daily  lives, 
in  the  conduct  of  our  own  business,  and  yet 
have  failed  so  completely  to  make  the  obvious 
application  in  the  things  which  concern  the 
Nation. 

It  is  curiously  true  that  great  aggrega- 
tions of  individuals  and  organized  bodies 
are  apt  to  be  less  far-sighted,  less  moral, 
less  intelligent  along  certain  lines  than  the 
individual  citizen;  or  at  least  that  their 
standards  are  lower;  a  principle  which  is 
illustrated  by  the  fact  that  we  have  got  over 
settling  disputes  between  individuals  by  the 
strong  hand,  but  not  yet  between  nations. 

So  we  have  allowed  ourselves  as  a  Nation, 
in  the  flush  of  the  tremendous  progress  that 
we  have  made,  to  fail  to  look  at  the  end 
from  the  beginning  and  to  put  ourselves 
in   a   position   where   the  normal   operation 

[73] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

of  natural  laws  threatens  to  bring  us  to  a 
halt  in  a  way  which  will  make  every  man, 
woman,  and  child  in  the  Nation  feel  the 
pinch  when  it  comes. 

No  man  may  rightly  fail  to  take  a  great 
pride  in  what  has  been  accomplished  by 
means  of  the  destruction  of  our  natural 
resources  so  far  as  it  has  gone.  It  is  a 
paradoxical  statement,  perhaps,  but  never- 
theless true,  because  out  of  this  attack  on 
what  nature  has  given  we  have  won  a  kind 
of  prosperity  and  a  kind  of  civilization  and 
a  kind  of  man  that  are  new  in  the  world. 
For  example,  nothing  Hke  the  rapidity  of 
the  destruction  of  American  forests  has  ever 
been  known  in  forest  history,  and  nothing 
like  the  efficiency  and  vigor  and  inventive- 
ness of  the  American  lumberman  has  ever 
been  developed  by  any  attack  on  any  forests 
elsewhere.  Probably  the  most  effective  tool 
that  the  human  mind  and  hand  have  ever 
made  is  the  American  axe.  So  the  American 
business  man  has  grasped  his  opportunities 

[74] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

and  used  them  and  developed  them  and  in- 
vented about  them,  thought  them  into  Hnes 
of  success,  and  thus  has  developed  into  a  new 
business  man,  with  a  vigor  and  effectiveness 
and  a  cutting-edge  that  has  never  been 
equalled  anywhere  else.  We  have  gained 
out  of  the  vast  destruction  of  our  natural 
resources  a  degree  of  vigor  and  power  and 
efficiency  of  which  every  man  of  us  ought  to 
be  proud. 

Now  that  is  done.  We  have  accomplished 
these  big  things.  What  is  the  next  step  ? 
Shall  we  go  on  in  the  same  lines  to  the 
certain  destruction  of  the  prosperity  which 
we  have  created,  or  shall  we  take  the  obvious 
lesson  of  all  human  history,  turn  our  backs 
on  the  uncivilized  point  of  view,  and  adopt 
toward  our  natural  resources  the  average 
prudence  and  average  foresight  and  average 
care  that  we  long  ago  adopted  as  a  rule  of 
our  daily  life  ? 

The  conservation  movement  is  calling 
the  attention  of  the  American  people  to  the 

l7S] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

fact  that  they  are  trustees.  The  fact  seems 
to  me  so  plain  as  to  require  only  a  statement 
of  it,  to  carry  conviction.  Can  we  reason- 
ably fail  to  recognize  the  obligation  which 
rests  upon  us  in  this  matter  ^  And,  if  we  do 
fail  to  recognize  it,  can  we  reasonably  expect 
even  a  fairly  good  reputation  at  the  hands 
of  our  descendants  ? 

Business  prudence  and  business  common- 
sense  indicate  as  strongly  as  anything  can 
the  absolute  necessity  of  a  change  in  point 
of  view  on  the  part  of  the  people  of  the 
United  States  regarding  their  natural  re- 
sources. The  way  we  have  been  handling 
them  is  not  good  business.  Purely  on  the 
side  of  dollars  and  cents,  it  is  not  good 
business  to  kill  the  goose  that  lays  the  golden 
egg,  to  burn  up  half  our  forests,  to  waste 
our  coal,  and  to  remove  from  under  the  feet 
of  those  who  are  coming  after  us  the  oppor- 
tunity for  equal  happiness  with  ourselves. 
The  thing  we  ought  to  leave  to  them  is  not 
merely  an  opportunity  for  equal  happiness 

[76] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

and   equal  prosperity,  but   for  a  vastly  in- 
creased fund  of  both. 

Conservation  is  not  merely  a  question  of 
business,  but  a  question  of  a  vastly  higher 
duty.  In  dealing  with  our  natural  resources 
we  have  come  to  a  place  at  last  where  every 
consideration  of  patriotism,  every  considera- 
tion of  love  of  country,  of  gratitude  for  things 
that  the  land  and  the  institutions  of  this 
Nation  have  given  us,  call  upon  us  for  a 
return.  If  we  owe  anything  to  the  United 
States,  if  this  country  has  been  good  to  us, 
if  it  has  given  us  our  prosperity,  our  educa- 
tion, and  our  chance  of  happiness,  then  there 
is  a  duty  resting  upon  us.  That  duty  is  to 
see,  so  far  as  in  us  lies,  that  those  who  are 
coming  after  us  shall  have  the  same  oppor- 
tunity for  happiness  we  have  had  ourselves. 
Apart  from  any  business  consideration,  apart 
from  the  question  of  the  immediate  dollar, 
this  problem  of  the  future  wealth  and  happi- 
ness and  prosperity  of  the  people  of  the 
United  States  has  a  right  to  our  attention. 

,[77]. 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

It  rises  far  above  all  matters  of  temporary 
individual  business  advantage,  and  becomes 
a  great  question  of  national  preservation. 
We  all  have  the  unquestionable  right  to  a 
reasonable  use  of  natural  resources  during  our 
lifetime,  we  all  may  use,  and  should  use, 
the  good  things  that  were  put  here  for 
our  use,  for  in  the  last  analysis  this  question 
of  conservation  is  the  question  of  national 
preservation  and  national  efficiency. 


[78] 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE    MORAL    ISSUE 

npHE  central  thing  for  which  Conser- 
vation  stands  is  to  make  this  country 
the  best  possible  place  to  live  in,  both  for 
us  and  for  our  descendants.  It  stands  against 
the  waste  of  the  natural  resources  which 
cannot  be  renewed,  such  as  coal  and  iron; 
it  stands  for  the  perpetuation  of  the  resources 
which  can  be  renewed,  such  as  the  food-pro- 
ducing soils  and  the  forests;  and  most  of  all 
it  stands  for  an  equal  opportunity  for  every 
American  citizen  to  get  his  fair  share  of 
benefit  from  these  resources,  both  now  and 
hereafter. 

Conservation  stands  for  the  same  kind 
of  practical  common-sense  management 
of  this   country   by   the   people   that   every 

[79] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

business  man  stands  for  in  the  handling  of 
his  own  business.  It  beheves  in  prudence 
and  foresight  instead  of  reckless  blindness; 
it  holds  that  resources  now  public  property 
should  not  become  the  basis  for  oppressive 
private  monopoly;  and  it  demands  the 
complete  and  orderly  development  of  all 
our  resources  for  the  benefit  of  all  the  people, 
instead  of  the  partial  exploitation  of  them 
for  the  benefit  of  a  few.  It  recognizes 
fully  the  right  of  the  present  generation  to 
use  what  it  needs  and  all  it  needs  of  the 
natural  resources  now  available,  but  it 
recognizes  equally  our  obligation  so  to  use 
what  we  need  that  our  descendants  shall 
not  be  deprived  of  what  they  need. 

Conservation  has  much  to  do  with  the 
welfare  of  the  average  man  of  to-day.  It 
proposes  to  secure  a  continuous  and  abun- 
dant supply  of  the  necessaries  of  life,  which 
means  a  reasonable  cost  of  living  and  busi- 
ness stability.  It  advocates  fairness  in  the 
distribution  of  the  benefits  which  flow  from 
[80] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

the  natural  resources.  It  will  matter  very 
little  to  the  average  citizen,  when  scarcity 
comes  and  prices  rise,  whether  he  can  not 
get  what  he  needs  because  there  is  none  left 
or  because  he  can  not  afford  to  pay  for  it. 
In  both  cases  the  essential  fact  is  that  he 
can  not  get  what  he  needs.  Conservation 
holds  that  it  is  about  as  important  to  see 
that  the  people  in  general  get  the  benefit 
of  our  natural  resources  as  to  see  that  there 
shall  be  natural  resources  left. 

Conservation  is  the  most  democratic 
movement  this  country  has  known  for  a 
generation.  It  holds  that  the  people  have 
not  only  the  right,  but  the  duty  to  control 
the  use  of  the  natural  resources,  which  are 
the  great  sources  of  prosperity.  And  it 
regards  the  absorption  of  these  resources 
by  the  special  interests,  unless  their  opera- 
tions are  under  effective  public  control, 
as  a  moral  wrong.  Conservation  is  the 
application  of  common-sense  to  the  common 
problems    for    the    common    good,    and    I 

[8il 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

believe  it  stands  nearer  to  the  desires,  aspira- 
tions, and  purposes  of  the  average  man 
than  any  other  poHcy  now  before  the  Ameri- 
can people. 

The  danger  to  the  Conservation  policies 
is  that  the  privileges  of  the  few  may  con- 
tinue to  obstruct  the  rights  of  the  many, 
especially  in  the  matter  of  water  power  and 
coal.  Congress  must  decide  immediately 
whether  the  great  coal  fields  still  in  public 
ownership  shall  remain  so,  in  order  that 
their  use  may  be  controlled  with  due  regard 
to  the  interest  of  the  consumer,  or  whether 
they  shall  pass  into  private  ownership  and 
be  controlled  in  the  monopolistic  interest 
of  a  few. 

Congress  must  decide  also  whether 
immensely  valuable  rights  to  the  use  of 
water  power  shall  be  given  away  to  special 
interests  in  perpetuity  and  without  compen- 
sation instead  of  being  held  and  controlled 
by  the  public.  In  most  cases  actual  devel- 
opment of  water  power  can  best  be  done 
[82] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

by  private  interests  acting  under  public 
control,  but  it  is  neither  good  sense  nor 
good  morals  to  let  these  valuable  privileges 
pass  from  the  public  ownership  for  nothing 
and  forever.  Other  conservation  matters 
doubtless  require  action,  but  these  two, 
the  conservation  of  water  power  and  of 
coal,  the  chief  sources  of  power  of  the 
present  and  the  future,  are  clearly  the  most 
pressing. 

It  is  of  the  first  importance  to  prevent 
our  water  powers  from  passing  into  private 
ownership  as  they  have  been  doing,  because 
the  greatest  source  of  power  we  know  is 
falling  water.  Furthermore,  it  is  the  only 
great  unfailing  source  of  power.  Our  coal, 
the  experts  say,  is  likely  to  be  exhausted 
during  the  next  century,  our  natural  gas 
and  oil  in  this.  Our  rivers,  if  the  forests 
on  the  watersheds  are  properly  handled, 
will  never  cease  to  deliver  power.  Under 
our  form  of  civilization,  if  a  few  men  ever 
succeed  in  controlling  the  sources  of  power, 

[83  1 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

they  will  eventually  control  all  industry 
as  well.  If  they  succeed  in  controlling  all 
industry,  they  will  necessarily  control  the 
country.  This  country  has  achieved  polit- 
ical freedom;  what  our  people  are  fighting 
for  now  is  industrial  freedom.  And  unless 
we  win  our  industrial  liberty,  we  can  not 
keep  our  political  liberty.  I  see  no  reason 
why  we  should  deliberately  keep  on  help- 
ing to  fasten  the  handcuffs  of  corporate 
control  upon  ourselves  for  all  time  merely 
because  the  few  men  who  would  profit  by 
it  most  have  heretofore  had  the  power  to 
compel  it. 

The  essential  things  that  must  be  done  to 
protect  the  water  powers  for  the  people 
are  few  and  simple.  First,  the  granting 
of  water  powers  forever,  either  on  non- 
navigable  or  navigable  streams,  must 
absolutely  stop.  It  is  perfectly  clear  that 
one  hundred,  fifty,  or  even  twenty-five  years 
ago  our  present  industrial  conditions  and 
industrial    needs    were    completely    beyond 

[84] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

the  imagination  of  the  wisest  of  our  pred- 
ecessors. It  is  just  as  true  that  we  can 
not  imagine  or  foresee  the  industrial  con- 
ditions and  needs  of  the  future.  But  we 
do  know  that  our  descendants  should  be 
left  free  to  meet  their  own  necessities  as 
they  arise.  It  can  not  be  right,  therefore, 
for  us  to  grant  perpetual  rights  to  the  one 
great  permanent  source  of  power.  It  is 
just  as  wrong  as  it  is  foolish,  and  just  as 
needless  as  it  is  wrong,  to  mortgage  the 
welfare  of  our  children  in  such  a  way  as 
this.  Water  powers  must  and  should  be 
developed  mainly  by  private  capital  and 
they  must  be  developed  under  conditions 
which  make  investment  in  them  profitable 
and  safe.  But  neither  profit  nor  safety 
requires  perpetual  rights,  as  many  of  the  best 
water-power  men  now  freely  acknowledge. 

Second,  the  men  to  whom  the  people 
grant  the  right  to  use  water-power  should 
pay  for  what  they  get.  The  water-power 
sites    now   in    the    public    hands    are    enor- 

[85] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

mously  valuable.  There  is  no  reason  what- 
ever why  special  Interests  should  be  allowed 
to  use  them  for  profit  without  making  some 
direct  payment  to  the  people  for  the  valuable 
rights  derived  from  the  people.  This  is 
important  not  only  for  the  revenue  the  Nation 
will  get.  It  is  at  least  equally  important 
as  a  recognition  that  the  public  controls  its 
own  property  and  has  a  right  to  share  in 
the  benefits  arising  from  its  development. 
There  are  other  w^ays  in  which  public  con- 
trol of  water  power  must  be  exercised,  but 
these  two  are  the  most  important. 

Water  power  on  non-navigable  streams 
usually  results  from  dropping  a  little  water 
a  long  way.  In  the  mountains  water  is 
dropped  many  hundreds  of  feet  upon  the 
turbines  which  move  the  dynamos  that  pro- 
duce the  electric  current.  Water  power  on 
navigable  streams  is  usually  produced  by 
dropping  immense  volumes  of  water  a  short 
distance,  as  twenty  feet,  fifteen  feet,  or 
even  less.  Every  stream  is  a  unit  from  its 
[86] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

source  to  its  mouth,  and  the  people  have 
the  same  stake  in  the  control  of  water  power 
in  one  part  of  it  as  in  another.  Under  the 
Constitution,  the  United  States  exercises 
direct  control  over  navigable  streams.  It 
exercises  control  over  non-navigable  and 
source  streams  only  through  its  ownership 
of  the  lands  through  which  they  pass,  as 
the  public  domain  and  National  Forests. 
It  is  just  as  essential  for  the  public  welfare 
that  the  people  should  retain  and  exercise 
control  of  water-power  monopoly  on  navi- 
gable as  on  non-navigable  streams.  If  the 
difficulties  are  greater,  then  the  danger 
that  the  water  powers  may  pass  out  of  the 
people's  hands  on  the  lower  navigable  parts 
of  the  streams  is  greater  than  on  the  upper 
ngn-navigable  parts,  and  it  may  be  harder, 
but  in  no  way  less  necessary,  to  prevent  it. 
It  must  be  clear  to  any  man  who  has 
followed  the  development  of  the  Conserva- 
tion idea  that  no  other  policy  now  before 
the  American  people  is  so  thoroughly  demo- 

[87] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

cratic  in  its  essence  and  in  its  tendencies 
as  the  Conservation  policy.  It  asserts  that 
the  people  have  the  right  and  the  duty, 
and  that  it  is  their  duty  no  less  than  their 
right,  to  protect  themselves  against  the 
uncontrolled  monopoly  of  the  natural 
resources  which  yield  the  necessaries  of 
life.  We  are  beginning  to  realize  that  the 
Conservation  question  is  a  question  of 
right  and  wrong,  as  any  question  must  be 
which  may  involve  the  differences  between 
prosperity  and  poverty,  health  and  sickness, 
ignorance  and  education,  well-being  and 
misery,  to  hundreds  of  thousands  of  famlHes. 
Seen  from  the  point  of  view  of  human  wel- 
fare and  human  progress,  questions  which 
begin  as  purely  economic  often  end  as  moral 
Issues.  Conservation  is  a  moral  issue 
because  It  involves  the  rights  and  the  duties 
of  our  people  —  their  rights  to  prosperity  and 
happiness,  and  their  duties  to  themselves,  to 
their  descendants,  and  to  the  whole  future 
progress  and  welfare  of  this  Nation. 
[88] 


CHAPTER  VIII 

PUBLIC    SPIRIT 

T /"lOLENT  crises  In  the  lives  of  men 
and  nations  usually  produce  their 
own  remedies.  They  grasp  the  attention 
and  stir  the  consciences  of  men,  and  usually 
they  evolve  leaders  and  measures  to  meet 
their  imperious  needs.  But  the  great  evi- 
dent crises  are  by  no  means  the  only  ones 
of  importance.  The  quiet  turning  point, 
reached  and  passed  often  with  slight  attention 
and  wholly  without  struggle,  is  frequently 
not  less  decisive.  Great  decisions  are  made 
or  great  impulses  given  or  withheld  in  the 
life  of  a  man  or  a  nation  often  so  quietly 
that  their  critical  character  is  seen  only  in 
retrospect.  It  is  only  the  historian  who  can 
say  just  when  some  unnoticed,  yet  decisive 

[89] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

and  irrevocable,  step  was  actually  accom- 
plished. 

The  United  States  has  been  in  the  midst 
of  such  a  period  of  decision  since  the  Spanish 
War  called  into  blossom  the  quiet  growth 
of  years,  and  we  are  still  face  to  face 
with  questions  of  the  most  vital  bear- 
ing upon  our  future.  The  changes  now 
in  progress  are  accompanied  by  no  con- 
vulsions, yet  the  whole  character  of  our 
civilization  is  being  rapidly  crystallized  anew 
as  our  country  takes  its  inevitable  place  in 
the  world. 

So  quietly  are  the  great  forces  at  work 
that  some  of  our  most  vital  problems  have 
remained  almost  unrecognized  by  the  pub- 
lic until  the  last  two  years.  Yet  the  fact 
that  these  decisions  are  being  made  is  almost 
appalling  in  its  magnitude,  and  their  inde- 
scribable consequence  not  only  to  the 
United  States,  but  to  all  the  nations  of  the 
earth,  needs  to  be  vividly  realized  by  every 
one  of  us,  for  it  is  one  of  the  great  com- 

[90] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

pelling  reasons  why  the  public  spirit  of 
young  men  is  needed  so  urgently  and  at  once. 
And  more  specific  reasons  press  upon  us 
from  every  side. 

Recently  the  attention  of  our  people,  thanks 
largely  to  President  Roosevelt,  was  focussed 
upon  the  presence  or  absence  of  the  common 
virtues  and  the  common  decencies  in  public 
life.  The  revelation  of  corruption  in  poli- 
tics, in  business,  and  here  and  there  in  the 
public  service,  is  a  testimony  not  of  unwonted 
wickedness  in  high  places,  but  of  unwonted 
sensitiveness  in  public  opinion,  and  so  far 
as  it  goes  it  is  a  most  hopeful  sign;  but  it 
does  not  yet  go  far  enough. 

The  opportunity  to  set  a  new  standard 
in  political  morality  is  here  now.  Public 
sensitiveness  on  every  subject  ebbs  and 
flows  and  must  be  taken  at  the  flood  if  the 
use  of  it  is  to  be  really  efi^ective.  Decision 
made  now  as  to  the  character  of  our  public 
Hfe  will  be  valid  for  many  years,  for  it  is  but 
seldom  that  the  question  comes  so  clearly  be- 

"    [91] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

fore  us.  The  war  for  righteousness  is  end- 
less, but  this  is  one  of  the  great  battles, 
and  its  results  will  endure. 

We  are  now  in  the  throes  of  decision  on 
the  whole  question  of  business  in  politics, 
of  politics  for  business  purposes,  and  we 
must  take  our  share  in  determining  whether 
the  object  of  our  political  system  is  to  be 
unclean  money  or  free  men.  The  present 
strong  movement  to  prevent  the  political 
control  of  public  men,  law-courts,  and  leg- 
islatures by  great  commercial  enterprises 
will  either  flash  in  the  pan  or  it  will  suc- 
ceed; it  will  leave  either  the  man  or  the 
dollar  in  control.  The  decision  will  be 
made  by  the  young  men,  and  it  is  not 
far  ahead. 

The  question  of  efficiency  in  public  office 
has  been  brought  to  the  front  as  never 
before  in  the  history  of  the  Nation.  As  a 
whole,  our  public  service  is  honest,  but  we 
should  be  able  to  take  honesty  for  granted. 
What  we  lack  is  the  tradition  of  high  effi- 

[92] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

ciency  that  makes  great  enterprises  succeed. 
The  national  housekeeping,  the  Govern- 
ment's vast  machinery,  should  be  the  cleanest, 
the  most  effective,  and  the  best  in  methods 
and  in  men,  for  its  touch  upon  the  life 
of  the  Nation  at  every  point  is  constant  and 
vital. 

There  is  no  hunger  like  land  hunger, 
and  no  object  for  which  men  are  more 
ready  to  use  unfair  and  desperate  means  than 
the  acquisition  of  land.  Under  the  influence 
of  this  compelling  desire,  assisted  by  obsolete 
land  laws  warped  from  their  original  pur- 
pose, we  are  facing  in  the  public-land  States 
west  of  the  Mississippi  the  great  question 
whether  the  Western  people  are  to  be  pre- 
dominately a  people  of  tenants  under  the  de- 
grading tyranny  of  pecuniary  and  political 
vassalage,  or  freeholders  and  free  men;  and 
there  is  no  exaggerating  the  importance  of 
the  decision. 

We  have  been  deciding,  and  the  decision 
is   not  yet  fully   made,   whether  the   future 

[93] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

shall  suffer  the  long  train  of  ills  which  every- 
where has  followed,  and  must  always  follow, 
the  abuse  of  the  forest,  or  whether  by  pro- 
tecting the  timberlands  we  shall  assure  the 
prosperity  of  all  of  the  users  of  the  wood, 
the  water,  and  the  forage  which  our  forests 
supply.  Nothing  less  than  the  whole  agri- 
cultural and  commercial  welfare  of  the 
country  is  in  the  balance.  No  other  conser- 
vation question  compares  with  this  in 
the  vital  intimacy  of  its  touch  on  every  por- 
tion of  our  national  life. 

Other  great  questions  only  less  vital  I 
cannot  even  refer  to,  but  one  of  the  central 
ones  remains  —  our  whole  future  is  at 
stake  in  the  education  of  our  young  men 
in  politics  and  public  spirit.  The  greatest 
work  that  Theodore  Roosevelt  did  for  the 
United  States,  the  great  fact  which  will  give 
his  influence  vitality  and  power  long  after 
we  shall  all  have  gone  to  our  reward,  greater 
than  his  great  services  in  bringing  peace,  l 
in  settling  strikes,  in  preaching  the  crusade 

[94]  j 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

of  honesty  and  decency  in  business  and  in 
daily  life,  is  the  fact  that  he  changed  the 
attitude  of  the  American  people  toward  con- 
serving the  natural  resources,  and  toward 
public  questions  and  public  life.  The  time 
was,  not  long  ago,  when  it  was  not  respect- 
able to  be  interested  in  politics.  The  time 
is  coming,  and  I  do  not  believe  it  is  far  ahead, 
when  it  will  not  be  respectable  not  to  be 
interested  in  pubHc  affairs.  Few  changes 
can  mean  so  much. 

Among  the  first  duties  of  every  man  is 
to  help  in  bringing  the  Kingdom  of  God 
on  earth.  The  greatest  human  power  for 
good,  the  most  efficient  earthly  tool  for  the 
future  upHfting  of  the  nations,  is  without 
question  the  United  States;  and  the  presence 
or  absence  of  a  vital  public  spirit  in  the 
young  men  of  the  United  States  will  deter- 
mine the  quality  of  that  great  tool  and  the 
work  that  it  can  do.  This  is  the  final  object 
of  the  best  citizenship.  Public  spirit  is 
the   means   by   which   every   man   can   help 

[95] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

toward  this  great  end.  Public  spirit  is 
patriotism  in  action;  it  is  the  application 
of  Christianity  to  the  commonwealth;  it  is 
effective  loyalty  to  our  country,  to  the 
brotherhood  of  man,  and  to  the  future.  It 
is  the  use  of  a  man  by  himself  for  the  general 
good. 

Public  spirit  is  the  one  great  antidote 
for  all  the  Ills  of  the  Nation,  and  greatly  the 
Nation  needs  it  now.  In  a  day  when 
the  vast  increase  in  wealth  tends  to  reduce 
all  things,  moral,  intellectual  and  material, 
to  the  measure  of  the  dollar;  in  a  day  when 
we  have  with  us  always  the  man  who  Is 
working  for  his  own  pocket  all  the  time; 
when  the  monopolist  of  land,  of  opportunity, 
of  power  or  privilege  in  any  form,  Is  ever 
in  the  public  eye  —  it  Is  good  to  remember 
that  the  real  leaders  are  the  men  who  value 
the  right  to  give  themselves  more  highly 
than  any  gain  whatsoever. 

It  Is  given  to  few  men  to  serve  their 
country    as    greatly  as   President    Roosevelt 

[96  ]i 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

has  done,  yet  vastly  smaller  services  are 
still  tremendously  worth  v^hile.  I  question 
whether  there  has  ever  been  a  time  and  place 
(except  in  violent  crises)  when  the  demand 
for  public  spirit  was  greater  than  now  and 
the  results  of  it  more  assured.  Public  spirit 
is  never  needed  more  than  in  times  of  pros- 
perity, and  it  is  never  more  effective.  It  is 
the  boat  which  is  floating  easily  and  rapidly 
with  the  stream  that  is  most  in  danger  of 
striking  the  rocks. 

The  reasons  why  public  opinion  may  be 
so  effective  in  the  United  States  are  not 
far  to  seek.  The  extreme  sensitiveness  of 
our  form  of  government  to  political  control 
is  one  of  the  commonplaces  that  has  real 
meaning.  We  seldom  realize  that  ours  is 
actually  what  it  pretends  to  be  —  a  repre- 
sentative government  —  and  our  legislatures 
are  extraordinarily  sensitive  to  what  the 
people,  the  politically  effective  people,  really 
want.  The  Senators  and  Representatives 
in  Congress  do  actually  and  accurately  repre- 

[97] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

sent  the  men  who  send  them  there,  and 
they  respond  Hke  lightning  to  a  clear  order 
from  the  controlling  element  at  home.  It 
is  in  the  power  of  public  spirit  to  say 
whether  men  or  money  shall  control. 

If  public  spirit  is  in  the  saddle,  the  funda- 
mental purpose  of  all  the  people,  which  is 
good,  will  govern.  If  not,  the  bosses  and 
the  great  private  interests  will  have  their 
way.  Without  the  backing  of  the  public 
spirit  of  good  men,  even  the  President  him- 
self loses  by  far  the  greater  portion  of  his 
power.  For  the  power  to  do  what  we 
hope  to  see  accomplished,  we  must  look 
most  of  all  to  the  public  spirit  of  the  young 
men. 

But  some  one  will  say  that  great  service 
is  beyond  his  individual  power.  I  do  not 
believe  that  great  service  is  beyond  the  power 
of  any  young  man.  This  is  not  a  matter 
in  which  obstacles  decide.  The  man  for 
whom  all  the  barriers  to  success  have  been 
broken  down  is  not,  as  a  rule,  the  man  who 

[98J 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

succeeds.  On  the  contrary,  conflict  is  the 
condition  of  success.  The  quality  of  the 
man  himself  decides.  The  more  I  study 
men,  which  is  the  daily  occupation  of  every 
man  in  aff'airs,  the  more  firmly  I  am  assured 
that  the  great  fundamental  diflference 
between  men,  the  reason  why  some  fail 
and  some  succeed,  is  not  a  difference  in 
ability  or  opportunity,  but  a  difference  in 
vision  and  in  relentless  loyalty  to  ideals  — 
vision  to  see  the  great  object,  and  relentless, 
unwavering,  uninterrupted  loyalty  in  its 
service.  What  young  men  determine  to 
do  at  whatever  cost  of  effort,  self-denial, 
and  endurance,  provided  that  their  objects 
are  good  and  within  the  possibility  of  attain- 
ment, they  will  surely  accomplish  in  so  large 
a  proportion  of  cases  that  the  failures  are 
negligible.  If  all  that  a  man  has  or  is, 
if  his  death  and  his  daily  hfe,  are  wholly 
and  relentlessly  at  the  service  of  his  ideal, 
without  hesitancy  or  reservation,  then  he 
will  achieve  his  object.     Either   by    himself 

[99  1 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

or  his  successors  he  will  achieve  it,  for  he 
disposes  of  the  greatest  power  to  which  hu- 
manity can  attain.  Under  such  conditions 
there  is  no  man  among  us  who  cannot  ren- 
der high  service  to  our  beloved  country. 


[lOo] 


CHAPTER   IX 

THE    CHILDREN 

^npHE  success  of  the  conservation  move- 
ment  in  the  United  States  depends 
in  the  end  on  the  understanding  the 
women  have  of  it.  No  forward  step  in 
this  whole  campaign  has  been  more 
deeply  appreciated  or  more  welcomed  than 
that  which  the  National  Society  of  the 
Daughters  of  the  American  Revolution  and 
other  organizations  of  women  have  taken  in 
appointing  conservation  committees. 

Patriotism  is  the  key  to  the  success  of 
any  nation,  and  patriotism  first  strikes  its 
roots  in  the  mind  of  the  child.  Patriotism 
which  does  not  begin  in  early  years  may, 
though  it  does  not  always,  fail  under  the 
severest    trials.     I    say    "not    always,"    for 

[lOl] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

many  men  and  women  have  proved  their 
patriotic  devotion  to  this  country  although 
they  were  born  elsewhere.  Yet,  as  a  rule, 
it  must  begin  with  the  children.  And  almost 
without  exception  it  is  the  mother  who  plants 
patriotism  in  the  mind  of  the  child.  It  is 
her  duty.  The  growth  of  patriotism  is 
first  of  all  in  the  hands  of  the  women  of  any 
nation.  In  the  last  analysis  it  is  the  mothers 
of  a  nation  who  direct  that  nation's  destiny. 

The  fundamental  task  of  patriotism  is  to 
see  to  it  that  the  Nation  exists  and  endures 
in  honor,  security,  and  well-being.  For- 
tunately there  is  no  question  as  to  our 
existing  in  honor,  and  little  if  any  as  to  our 
continuing  to  exist  in  security. 

The  great  fundamental  problem  which 
confronts  us  all  now  is  this:  Shall  we 
continue,  as  a  Nation,  to  exist  in  well-being .? 
That  is  the  conservation  problem. 

If  we  are  to  have  prosperity  in  this  country, 
it  will  be  because  we  have  an  abundance  of 
natural  resources  available  for  the  citizen. 
[102] 


»         THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

*  In  other  words,  as  the  minds  of  the  children 
are  guided  toward  the  idea  of  foresight, 
just  to  that  extent,  and  probably  but  little 
'  more,  will  the  generations  that  are  coming 
■  hereafter  be  able  to  carry  through  the  great 
task  of  making  this  Nation  what  its  manifest 
destiny  demands  that  it  shall  be. 

Women  should  recognize,  if  this  task  is 
to  be  carried  out,  one  great  truth  above  all 
others.  That  this  Nation  exists  for  its 
people,  we  all  admit;  but  that  the  natural 
resources  of  the  Nation  exist  not  for  any 
small  group,  not  for  any  individual,  but 
for  all  the  people  —  in  other  words,  that 
the  natural  resources  of  the  Nation  belong 
to  all  the  people  —  that  is  a  truth  the  whole 
meaning  of  which  is  just  beginning  to 
dawn  on  us.  There  is  no  form  of  monopoly 
which  exists  or  ever  has  existed  on  any 
large  scale  which  was  not  based  more  or 
less  directly  upon  the  control  of  natural 
resources.  There  is  no  form  of  monopoly 
that  has  ever  existed  or  can  exist  which  can 

[103] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

do  harm  if  the  people  understand  that 
the  natural  resources  belong  to  the  people 
of  the  Nation,  and  exercise  that  understand- 
ing, as  they  have  the  power  to  do. 

It  seems  to  me  that  of  all  the  movements 
which  have  been  inaugurated  to  give  power 
to  the  conservation  idea,  the  foresight  idea, 
there  is  none  more  helpful  than  that  the 
women  of  the  United  States  are  taking  hold 
of  the  problem.  We  must  make  all  the 
people  see  that  now  and  in  the  future  the 
resources  are  to  be  developed  and  employed, 
yet  at  the  same  time  guarded  and  protected 
against  waste  —  not  for  small  groups  of 
men  who  will  control  them  for  their  own 
purposes,  but  for  all  the  people  through 
all  time. 

The  question  of  the  conservation  of  our 
natural  resources  is  not  a  simple  question, 
but  it  requires,  and  will  increasingly  require, 
thinking  out  along  lines  directed  to  the 
fundamental  economic  basis  upon  which 
this  Nation  exists.  I  think  it  can  not  be 
[104] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

disputed  that  the  natural  resources  exist 
for  and  belong  to  the  people;  and  I  believe 
that  the  part  of  the  work  which  falls  to  the 
women  (and  it  is  no  small  part)  is  to  see  to 
it  that  the  children,  who  will  be  the  men 
and  women  of  the  future,  have  their  share 
of  these  resources  uncontrolled  by  monopoly 
and  unspoiled  by  waste. 

What  specific  things  can  the  women  of 
the  Nation  do  for  conservation  ?  The 
Daughters  of  the  American  Revolution  have 
begun  admirably  in  the  appointment  of  a 
Conservation  Committee,  and  other  organ- 
izations of  women  are  following  their  exam- 
ple. Few  people  realize  what  women  have 
already  done  for  conservation,  and  what 
they  may  do.  Some  of  the  earliest  effective 
forest  work  that  was  done  in  the  United 
States,  work  which  laid  the  lines  that  have 
been  followed  since,  was  that  of  the  Penn- 
sylvania Forestry  Association,  begun  and 
carried  through  first  of  all  by  ladies  in 
Philadelphia.     One    of   the    bravest,    most 

[105] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

intelligent  and  most  effective  fights  for  for- 
estry that  I  have  known  of  was  that  of  the 
women  of  Minnesota  for  the  Minnesota 
National  Forest.  It  was  a  superb  suc- 
cess, and  we  have  that  forest  to-day.  I 
have  known  of  no  case  of  persistent  agita- 
tion under  discouragement  finer  in  a  good 
many  ways  than  the  fight  that  the  women 
of  CaHfornia  have  made  to  save  the  great 
grove  of  Calaveras  big  trees.  As  a  result 
the  Government  has  taken  possession  of 
that  forest  and  will  preserve  it  for  all  future 
generations. 

Time  and  again,  then,  the  women  have 
made  it  perfectly  clear  what  they  can  do 
in  this  work.  Obviously  the  first  point  of 
attack  is  the  stopping  of  waste.  Women  alone 
can  bring  to  the  school  children  the  idea 
of  the  wickedness  of  national  waste  and  the 
value  of  public  saving.  The  issue  is  a  moral 
one;  and  women  are  the  first  teachers  of 
right  and  wrong.  It  is  a  question  of  seeing 
what  loyalty  to  the  public  welfare  demands 
[io6] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

of  us,  and  then  of  caring  enough  for  the 
public  welfare  not  to  set  personal  advantage 
first.  It  is  a  question  of  inspiring  our  fu- 
ture citizens  while  they  are  boys  and  girls 
with  the  spirit  of  true  patriotism  as  against 
the  spirit  of  rank  selfishness,  the  anti-social 
spirit  of  the  man  who  declines  to  take  into 
account  any  other  interest  than  his  own; 
whose  one  aim  and  ideal  is  personal  success. 
Women  both  in  public  and  at  home,  by 
letting  the  men  know  what  they  think,  and 
by  putting  it  before  the  children,  can  make 
familiar  the  idea  of  conservation,  and  support 
it  with  a  convincingness  that  nobody  else 
can  approach. 

However  important  it  may  be  for  the 
lumberman,  the  miner,  the  wagon-maker, 
the  railroad  man,  the  house-builder, —  for 
every  industry, —  that  conservation  should 
obtain,  when  all  is  said  and  done,  con- 
servation goes  back  in  its  directest  application 
to  one  body  in  this  country,  and  that  is  to 
the  children.  There  is  in  this  country  no 
[107] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

other  movement  except  possibly  the  educa- 
tion movement  —  and  that  after  all  is  in  a 
sense  only  another  aspect  of  the  conservation 
question,  the  seeking  to  make  the  most  of 
what  we  have  —  so  directly  aimed  to  help  the 
children,  so  conditioned  upon  the  needs  of  the 
children,  so  belonging  to  the  children,  as  the 
conservation  movement;  and  it  is  for  that 
reason  more  than  any  other  that  it  has  the 
support  of  the  women  of  the  Nation. 


[io8] 


CHAPTER  X 

AN    EQUAL    CHANCE 

^TpHE  American  people  have  evidently 
made  up  their  minds  that  our  natural 
resources  must  be  conserved.  That  is  good, 
but  it  settles  only  half  the  question.  For 
whose  benefit  shall  they  be  conserved  —  for 
the  benefit  of  the  many,  or  for  the  use  and 
profit  of  the  few,?  The  great  conflict  now 
being  fought  will  decide.  There  is  no  other 
question  before  us  that  begins  to  be  so 
important,  or  that  will  be  so  difficult  to 
straddle,  as  the  great  question  between 
special  interest  and  equal  opportunity, 
between  the  privileges  of  the  few  and  the 
rights  of  the  many,  between  government  by 
men  for  human  welfare  and  government  by 
money  for  profit,  between  the  men  who 
[109] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

stand  for  the  Roosevelt  policies  and  the  men 
who  stand  against  them.  This  is  the  heart 
of  the  conservation  problem  to-day. 

The  conservation  issue  is  a  moral  issue. 
When  a  few  men  get  possession  of  one  of 
the  necessaries  of  life,  either  through  owner- 
ship of  a  natural  resource  or  through  unfair 
business  methods,  and  use  that  control  to 
extort  undue  profits,  as  in  the  recent  cases 
of  the  Sugar  Trust  and  the  beef-packers,  they 
injure  the  average  man  without  good  reason, 
and  they  are  guilty  of  a  moral  wrong.  It 
does  not  matter  whether  the  undue  profit 
comes  through  stifling  competition  by  rebates 
or  other  crooked  devices,  through  corruption 
of  public  oflScials,  or  through  seizing  and 
monopolizing  resources  which  belong  to  the 
people.  The  result  is  always  the  same  — 
a  toll  levied  on  the  cost  of  living  through 
special  privilege. 

The  income  of  the  average  family  in  the 
United  States  is  less  than  ;^6oo  a  year.  To 
increase  the  cost  of  living  to  such  a  family 
[no] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

beyond  the  reasonable  profits  of  legitimate 
business  is  wrong.  It  is  not  merely  a  question 
of  a  few  cents  more  a  day  for  the  necessaries 
of  life,  or  of  a  few  cents  less  a  day  for  wages. 
Far  more  is  at  stake  —  the  health  or  sickness 
of  little  babies,  the  education  or  ignorance 
of  children,  virtue  or  vice  in  young  daughters, 
honesty  or  criminality  in  young  sons,  the 
working  power  of  bread-winners,  the  integ- 
rity of  families,  the  provision  for  old  age  — 
in  a  word,  the  welfare  and  happiness  or  the 
misery  and  degradation  of  the  plain  people 
are  involved  in  the  cost  of  living. 

To  the  special  interest  an  unjust  rise  in 
the  cost  of  living  means  simply  higher  profit, 
but  to  those  who  pay  it,  that  profit  is  meas- 
ured in  schooling,  warm  clothing,  a  reserve 
to  meet  emergencies,  a  fair  chance  to  make 
the  fight  for  comfort,  decency,  and  right 
living. 

I  believe  in  our  form  of  government  and 
I  believe  in  the  Golden  Rule.  But  we  must 
face  the  truth  that  monopoly  of  the  sources 
[III] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

of  production  makes  it  impossible  for  vast 
numbers  of  men  and  women  to  earn  a  fair 
living.  Right  here  the  conservation  question 
touches  the  daily  life  of  the  great  body  of 
our  people,  who  pay  the  cost  of  special 
privilege.  And  the  price  is  heavy.  That 
price  may  be  the  chance  to  save  the  boys  from 
the  saloons  and  the  corner  gang,  and  the 
girls  from  worse,  and  to  make  good  citizens 
of  them  instead  of  bad;  for  an  appalling 
proportion  of  the  tragedies  of  life  spring 
directly  from  the  lack  of  a  little  money. 
Thousands  of  daughters  of  the  poor  fall  into 
the  hands  of  the  white-slave  traders  because 
their  poverty  leaves  them  without  protec- 
tion. Thousands  of  families,  as  the  Pitts- 
burg survey  has  shown  us,  lead  Hves  of 
brutalizing  overwork  in  return  for  the  barest 
living.  Is  it  fair  that  these  thousands  of 
families  should  have  less  than  they  need  in 
order  that  a  few  families  should  have  swollen 
fortunes  at  their  expense .?  Let  him  who 
dares  deny  that  there  is  wickedness  in  grind- 
[112] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

ing  the  faces  of  the  poor,  or  assert  that  these 
are  not  moral  questions  which  strike  the 
very  homes  of  our  people.  If  these  are 
not  moral  questions,  there  are  no  moral 
questions. 

The  people  of  this  country  have  lost 
vastly  more  than  they  can  ever  regain  by  gifts 
of  public  property,  forever  and  without 
charge,  to  men  who  gave  nothing  in  return. 
It  is  true  that  we  have  made  superb  material 
progress  under  this  system,  but  it  is  not 
well  for  us  to  rejoice  too  freely  in  the  slices 
the  special  interests  have  given  us  from  the 
great  loaf  of  the  property  of  all  the  people. 

The  people  of  the  United  States  have  been 
the  complacent  victims  of  a  system  of  grab, 
often  perpetrated  by  men  who  would  have 
been  surprised  beyond  measure  to  be  accused 
of  wrong-doing,  and  many  of  whom  in  their 
private  lives  were  model  citizens.  But  they 
have  suffered  from  a  curious  moral  perver- 
sion by  which  it  becomes  praiseworthy  to 
do    for    a    corporation    things    which    they 

[113] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

would  refuse  with  the  loftiest  scorn  to  do 
for  themselves.  Fortunately  for  us  all  that 
delusion  is  passing  rapidly  away. 

President  Hadley  well  said  that  "the 
fundamental  division  of  powers  in  the  Con- 
stitution of  the  United  States  is  between 
voters  on  the  one  hand  and  property-owners 
on  the  other."  When  property  gets  pos- 
session of  the  voting  power  also,  little  is 
left  for  the  people.  That  is  why  the  unholy 
alliance  between  business  and  politics  is 
the  most  dangerous  fact  in  our  political 
life.  I  believe  the  American  people  are 
tired  of  that  alliance.  They  are  weary  of 
politics  for  revenue  only.  It  is  time  to  take 
business  out  of  politics,  and  keep  it  out  — 
time  for  the  political  activity  of  this  Nation 
to  be  aimed  squarely  at  the  welfare  of  all 
of  us,  and  squarely  away  from  the  excessive 
profits  of  a  few  of  us. 

A  man  is  not  bad  because  he  is  rich,  nor 
good  because  he  is  poor.  There  is  no  mon- 
opoly  of  virtue.     I    hold    no   brief  for   the 

[114] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

poor  against  the  rich  nor  for  the  wage- 
earner  against  the  capitaHst.  Exceptional 
capacity  in  business,  as  in  any  other  Hne 
of  Hfe,  should  meet  with  exceptional  reward. 
Rich  men  have  served  this  country  greatly. 
Washington  was  a  rich  man.  But  it  is 
very  clear  that  excessive  profits  from  the 
control  of  natural  resources,  monopolized 
by  a  few,  are  not  worth  to  this  Nation  the 
tremendous  price  they  cost  us. 

We  have  allowed  the  great  corporations 
to  occupy  with  their  own  men  the  strategic 
points  in  business,  in  social,  and  in  political 
life.  It  is  our  fault  more  than  theirs.  We 
have  allowed  it  when  we  could  have  stopped 
it.  Too  often  we  have  seemed  to  forget 
that  a  man  in  public  Hfe  can  no  more  serve 
both  the  special  interests  and  the  people 
than  he  can  serve  God  and  Mammon. 
There  is  no  reason  why  the  American  people 
should  not  take  into  their  hands  again  the 
full  political  power  which  is  theirs  by  right, 
and  which  they  exercised  before  the  special 

[115] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

interests  began  to  nullify  the  will  of  the 
majority.  There  are  many  men  who  believe, 
and  who  will  always  believe,  in  the  divine 
right  of  money  to  rule.  With  such  men 
argument,  compromise,  or  conciliation  is 
useless  or  worse.  The  only  thing  to  do 
with  them  is  to  fight  them  and  beat  them.  It 
has  been  done,  and  it  can  be  done  again. 

It  is  the  honorable  distinction  of  the 
Forest  Service  that  it  has  been  more  con- 
stantly, more  violently  and  more  bitterly 
attacked  by  the  representatives  of  the  special 
interests  in  recent  years  than  any  other 
Government  Bureau.  These  attacks  have 
increased  in  violence  and  bitterness  just  in 
proportion  as  the  Service  has  offered  effective 
opposition  to  predatory  wealth.  The  more 
successful  the  Forest  Service  has  been  in 
preventing  land-grabbing  and  the  absorption 
of  water  power  by  the  special  interests,  the 
more  ingenious,  the  more  devious,  and  the 
more  dangerous  these  attacks  have  become. 
A  favorite  one  is  to  assert  that  the  Forest 
[ii6] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

Service,  in  its  zeal  for  the  public  welfare, 
has  played  ducks  and  drakes  with  the  Acts 
of  Congress.  The  fact  is,  on  the  contrary, 
that  the  Service  has  had  warrant  of  law  for 
everything  it  has  done.  Not  once  since  it  was 
created  has  any  charge  of  illegality,  despite 
the  most  searching  investigation  and  the 
bitterest  attack,  ever  led  to  reversal  or  reproof 
by  either  House  of  Congress  or  by  any  Con- 
gressional Committee.  Not  once  has  the 
Forest  Service  been  defeated  or  reversed 
as  to  any  vital  legal  principle  underlying  its 
work  in  any  court  or  administrative  tribunal 
of  last  resort.  It  is  the  first  duty  of  a  public 
officer  to  obey  the  law.  But  it  is  his  second 
duty,  and  a  close  second,  to  do  everything 
the  law  will  let  him  do  for  the  public  good, 
and  not  merely  what  the  law  directs  or  com- 
pels him  to  do.  Unless  the  public  service  is 
alive  enough  to  serve  the  people  with  enthu- 
siasm, there  is  very  little  to  be  said  for  it. 

Another,    and    unusually    plausible,    form 
of  attack,   is  to  demand   that  all   land   not 

[117] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

now  bearing  trees  shall  be  thrown  out  of 
the  National  Forests.  For  centuries  forest 
fires  have  burned  through  the  Western 
mountains,  and  much  land  thus  deforested 
is  scattered  throughout  the  National  For- 
ests awaiting  reforestation.  This  land  is 
not  valuable  for  agriculture,  and  will  con- 
tribute more  to  the  general  welfare  under 
forest  than  in  any  other  way.  To  exclude 
it  from  the  National  Forests  would  be  no 
more  reasonable  than  it  would  be  in  a  city 
to  remove  from  taxation  and  municipal 
control  every  building  lot  not  now  covered 
by  a  house.  It  would  be  no  more  reason- 
able than  to  condemn  and  take  away  from 
our  farmers  every  acre  of  land  that  did  not 
bear  a  crop  last  year,  or  to  confiscate  a 
man's  winter  overcoat  because  he  was  not 
wearing  it  in  July.  A  generation  in  the  life 
of  a  nation  is  no  longer  than  a  season  in 
the  life  of  a  man.  With  a  fair  chance  we 
can  and  will  reclothe  these  denuded  moun- 
tains with  forests,  and  we  ask  for  that  chance. 
[n81 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

Still  another  attack,  nearly  successful 
two  years  ago,  was  an  attempt  to  prevent 
the  Forest  Service  from  telling  the  people, 
through  the  press,  what  it  is  accomplish- 
ing for  them,  and  how  much  this  Nation 
needs  the  forests.  If  the  Forest  Service  can 
not  tell  what  it  is  doing  the  time  will  come 
when  there  will  be  nothing  to  tell.  It  is 
just  as  necessary  for  the  people  to  know 
what  is  being  done  to  help  them  as  to 
know  what  is  being  done  to  hurt  them. 
Publicity  is  the  essential  and  indispensable 
condition  of  clean  and  effective  public  service. 

Since  the  Forest  Service  called  public 
attention  to  the  rapid  absorption  of  the  water- 
power  sites  and  the  threatening  growth  of 
a  great  water-power  monopoly,  the  attacks 
upon  it  have  increased  with  marked  rapidity. 
I  anticipate  that  they  will  continue  to  do 
so.  Still  greater  opposition  is  promised  in 
the  near  future.  There  is  but  one  protec- 
tion —  an  awakened  and  determined  public 
opinion.     That  is  why  I  tell  the  facts. 

[119] 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE    NEW   PATRIOTISM 

**  I  ^HE  people  of  the  United  States  are 
"*■  on  the  verge  of  one  of  the  great  quiet 
decisions  which  determine  national  destinies. 
Crises  happen  in  peace  as  well  as  in  war, 
and  a  peaceful  crisis  may  be  as  vital  and 
controlling  as  any  that  comes  with  national 
uprising  and  the  clash  of  arms.  Such  a 
crisis,  at  first  uneventful  and  almost  un- 
perceived,  is  upon  us  now,  and  we  are 
engaged  in  making  the  decision  that  is 
thus  forced  upon  us.  And,  so  far  as  it 
has  gone,  our  decision  is  largely  wrong. 
Fortunately  it  is  not  yet  final. 

The    question    we    are    deciding   with    so 
little   consciousness    of  what   it   involves   is 
this:     What  shall  we  do  with  our  natural 
[120] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

resources  ?  Upon  the  final  answer  that  we 
shall  make  to  it  hangs  the  success  or  failure 
of  this  Nation  in  accomplishing  its  manifest 
destiny. 

Few  Americans  will  deny  that  it  is  the 
manifest  destiny  of  the  United  States  to 
demonstrate  that  a  democratic  republic  is 
the  best  form  of  government  yet  devised, 
and  that  the  ideals  and  institutions  of  the 
great  republic  taken  together  must  and  do 
work  out  in  a  prosperous,  contented,  peace- 
ful, and  righteous  people;  and  also  to  exercise, 
through  precept  and  example,  an  influence 
for  good  among  the  nations  of  the  world. 
That  destiny  seems  to  us  brighter  and  more 
certain  of  realization  to-day  than  ever  before. 
It  is  true  that  in  population,  in  wealth,  in 
knowledge,  in  national  efficiency  generally, 
we  have  reached  a  place  far  beyond  the 
farthest  hopes  of  the  founders  of  the  Republic. 
Are  the  causes  which  have  led  to  our  mar- 
vellous development  likely  to  be  repeated 
indefinitely  in  the  future,  or  is  there  a  reason- 

[121] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

able  possibility,  or  even  a  probability,  that 
conditions  may  arise  which  will  check  our 
growth  ? 

Danger  to  a  nation  comes  either  from 
without  or  from  within.  In  the  first  great 
crisis  of  our  history,  the  Revolution,  another 
people  attempted  from  without  to  halt  the 
march  of  our  destiny  by  refusing  to  us  liberty. 
With  reasonable  prudence  and  preparedness 
we  need  never  fear  another  such  attempt. 
If  there  be  danger,  it  is  not  from  an  external 
source.  In  the  second  great  crisis,  the 
Civil  War,  a  part  of  our  own  people  strove 
for  an  end  which  would  have  checked  the 
progress  of  development.  Another  such 
attempt  has  become  forever  impossible.  If 
there  be  danger,  it  is  not  from  a  division  of 
our  people. 

In  the  third  great  crisis  of  our  history, 
which  has  now  come  squarely  upon  us, 
the  special  interests  and  the  thoughtless 
citizens  seem  to  have  united  together  to 
deprive  the  Nation  of  the  great  natural 
[122] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

resources  without  which  it  cannot  endure. 
This  is  the  pressing  danger  now,  and  it  is 
not  the  least  to  which  our  National  life  has 
been  exposed.  A  nation  deprived  of  liberty 
may  win  it,  a  nation  divided  may  reunite, 
but  a  nation  whose  natural  resources  are 
destroyed  must  inevitably  pay  the  penalty 
of  poverty,  degradation,  and  decay. 

At  first  blush  this  may  seem  like  an  unpar- 
donable misconception  and  over-statement, 
and  if  it  is  not  true  it  certainly  is  unpardon- 
able. Let  us  consider  the  facts.  Some  of 
them  are  well  known,  and  the  salient  ones 
can  be  put  very  briefly. 

The  five  indispensably  essential  materials 
in  our  civilization  are  wood,  water,  coal, 
iron,  and  agricultural  products. 

We  have  timber  for  less  than  thirty  years 
at  the  present  rate  of  cutting.  The  figures 
indicate  that  our  demands  upon  the  forest 
have  increased  twice  as  fast  as  our  popula- 
tion. 

We  have  anthracite  coal  for  but  fifty 
[123] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

years,  and  bituminous  coal  for  less  than  two 
hundred. 

Our  supplies  of  iron  ore,  mineral  oil, 
and  natural  gas  are  being  rapidly  depleted, 
and  many  of  the  great  fields  are  already 
exhausted.  Mineral  resources  such  as  these 
when  once  gone  are  gone  forever. 

We  have  allowed  erosion,  that  great  enemy 
of  agriculture,  to  impoverish  and,  over 
thousands  of  square  miles,  to  destroy  our 
farms.  The  Mississippi  alone  carries  yearly 
to  the  sea  more  than  400,000,000  tons  of 
the  richest  soil  within  its  drainage  basin. 
If  this  soil  is  worth  a  dollar  a  ton,  it  is  prob- 
able that  the  total  loss  of  fertility  from 
soil-wash  to  the  farmers  and  forest-owners 
of  the  United  States  is  not  far  from  a  billion 
dollars  a  year.  Our  streams,  in  spite  of 
the  millions  of  dollars  spent  upon  them,  are 
less  navigable  now  than  they  were  fifty 
years  ago,  and  the  soil  lost  by  erosion  from 
the  farms  and  the  deforested  mountain 
sides,  is  the  chief  reason.  The  great  cattle 
[124] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

and  sheep  ranges  of  the  West,  because  of 
overgrazing,  are  capable,  in  an  average 
year,  of  carrying  but  half  the  stock  they 
once  could  support  and  should  still.  Their 
condition  affects  the  price  of  meat  in  prac- 
tically every  city  of  the  United  States. 

These  are  but  a  few  of  the  more  striking 
examples.  The  diversion  of  great  areas  of 
our  public  lands  from  the  home-maker  to 
the  landlord  and  the  speculator;  the  national 
neglect  of  great  v^ater  powers,  which  might 
well  relieve,  being  perennially  renewed,  the 
drain  upon  our  non-renewable  coal;  the 
fact  that  but  half  the  coal  has  been  taken 
from  the  mines  which  have  already  been 
abandoned  as  worked  out  and  by  caving- 
in  have  made  the  rest  forever  inaccessible; 
the  disuse  of  the  cheaper  transportation  of 
our  waterways,  which  involves  compara- 
tively sHght  demand  upon  our  non-renewable 
supplies  of  iron  ore,  and  the  use  of  the  rail 
instead  —  these  are  other  items  in  the  huge 
bill  of  particulars  of  national  waste. 

[125] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

We  have  a  well-marked  national  tendency 
to  disregard  the  future,  and  it  has  led  us 
to  look  upon  all  -our  natural  resources  as 
inexhaustible.  Even  now  that  the  actual 
exhaustion  of  some  of  them  is  forcing  itself 
upon  us  in  higher  prices  and  the  greater 
cost  of  living,  we  are  still  asserting,  if  not 
always  in  words,  yet  in  the  far  stronger 
language  of  action,  that  nevertheless  and 
in  spite  of  it  all,  they  still  are  inexhaustible. 

It  is  this  national  attitude  of  exclusive  at- 
tention to  the  present,  this  absence  of  foresight 
from  among  the  springs  of  national  action, 
which  is  directly  responsible  for  the  present 
condition  of  our  natural  resources.  It  was 
precisely  the  same  attitude  which  brought 
Palestine,  once  rich  and  populous,  to  its 
present  desert  condition,  and  which  destroyed 
the  fertility  and  habitability  of  vast  areas 
in  northern  Africa  and  elsewhere  in  so  many 
of  the  older  regions  of  the  world. 

The  conservation  of  our  natural  resources 
is  a  question  of  primary  importance  on  the 
[126] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

economic  side.  It  pays  better  to  conserve 
our  natural  resources  than  to  destroy  them, 
and  this  is  especially  true  when  the  national 
interest  is  considered.  But  the  business 
reason,  weighty  and  worthy  though  it  be, 
is  not  the  fundamental  reason.  In  such 
matters,  business  is  a  poor  master  but  a 
good  servant.  The  law  of  self-preservation 
is  higher  than  the  law  of  business,  and  the 
duty  of  preserving  the  Nation  is  still  higher 
than  either. 

The  American  Revolution  had  its  origin 
in  part  in  economic  causes,  and  it  produced 
economic  results  of  tremendous  reach  and 
weight.  The  Civil  War  also  arose  in  large 
part  from  economic  conditions,  and  it  has 
had  the  largest  economic  consequences.  But 
in  each  case  there  was  a  higher  and  more 
compeUing  reason.  So  with  the  third  great 
crisis  of  our  history.  It  has  an  economic 
aspect  of  the  largest  and  most  permanent 
importance,  and  the  motive  for  action  along 
that  line,  once  it  is  recognized,  should  be 
[127] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

more  than  sufficient.  But  that  is  not  all. 
In  this  case,  too,  there  is  a  higher  and  more 
compelling  reason.  The  question  of  the 
conservation  of  natural  resources,  or  national 
resources,  does  not  stop  with  being  a  ques- 
tion of  profit.  It  is  a  vital  question  of 
profit,  but  what  is  still  more  vital,  it  is  a 
question  of  national  safety  and  patriotism 
also. 

We  have  passed  the  inevitable  stage  of 
pioneer  pillage  of  natural  resources.  The 
natural  wealth  we  found  upon  this  continent 
has  made  us  rich.  We  have  used  it,  as  we 
had  a  right  to  do,  but  we  have  not  stopped 
there.  We  have  abused,  and  wasted,  and 
exhausted  it  also,  so  that  there  is  the  gravest 
danger  that  our  prosperity  to-day  will  have 
been  bought  at  the  price  of  the  suffering 
and  poverty  of  our  descendants.  We  may 
now  fairly  ask  of  ourselves  a  reasonable 
care  for  the  future  and  a  natural  interest 
in  those  who  are  to  come  after  us.  No 
patriotic  citizen  expects  this  Nation  to  run 
[128] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

its  course  and  perish  in  a  hundred  or  two 
hundred,  or  five  hundred  years;  but,  on  the 
contrary,  we  expect  it  to  grow  in  influence 
and  power  and,  what  is  of  vastly  greater 
importance,  in  the  happiness  and  prosperity 
of  our  people.  But  we  have  as  Httle  reason 
to  expect  that  all  this  will  happen  of  itself 
as  there  would  have  been  for  the  men  who 
established  this  Nation  to  expect  that  a 
United  States  would  grow  of  itself  without 
their  efforts  and  sacrifices.  It  was  their 
duty  to  found  this  Nation,  and  they  did  it. 
It  is  our  duty  to  provide  for  its  continuance 
in  well-being  and  honor.  That  duty  it 
seems  as  though  we  might  neglect  —  not 
in  wilfulness,  not  in  any  lack  of  patriotic 
devotion,  when  once  our  patriotism  is  aroused, 
but  in  mere  thoughtlessness  and  inability  or 
unwillingness  to  drop  the  interests  of  the 
moment  long  enough  to  realize  that  what 
we  do  now  will  decide  the  future  of  the 
Nation.  For,  if  we  do  not  take  action  to 
conserve  the  Nation's  natural  resources,  and 
[129] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

that   soon,   our   descendants   will   suffer   the 
penalty  of  our  neglect. 

Let  me  use  a  homely  illustration:  We 
have  all  known  fathers  and  mothers,  devoted 
to  their  children,  whose  attention  was  fixed 
and  limited  by  the  household  routine  of 
daily  life.  Such  parents  were  actively  con- 
cerned with  the  common  needs  and  precau- 
tions and  remedies  entailed  in  bringing  up 
a  family,  but  blind  to  every  threat  that  was 
at  all  unusual.  Fathers  and  mothers  such 
as  these  often  remain  serenely  unaware 
while  some  dangerous  malady  or  injurious 
habit  is  fastening  itself  upon  a  favorite  child. 
Once  the  evil  is  discovered,  there  is  no 
sacrifice  too  great  to  repair  the  damage  which 
their  unwitting  neglect  may  have  allowed  to 
become  irreparable.  So  it  is,  I  think,  with 
the  people  of  the  United  States.  Capable 
of  every  devotion  in  a  recognized  crisis,  we 
have  yet  carelessly  allowed  the  habit  of 
improvidence  and  waste  of  resources  to  find 
lodgment.     It  is  our  great  good  fortune  that 

[130] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

the    harm    is    not    yet    altogether    beyond 
repair. 

The  profoundest  duty  that  lies  upon  any 
father  is  to  leave  his  son  with  a  reasonable 
equipment  for  the  struggle  of  life  and  an 
untarnished  name.  So  the  noblest  task  that 
confronts  us  all  to-day  is  to  leave  this  country 
unspotted  in  honor,  and  unexhausted  in 
resources,  to  our  descendants,  v^ho  will  be, 
not  less  than  we,  the  children  of  the  Founders 
of  the  Republic.  I  conceive  this  task  to 
partake  of  the  highest  spirit  of  patriotism. 


[131I 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE    PRESENT    BATTLE 

/CONSERVATION  has  captured  the  Na- 
^^^  tion.  Its  progress  during  the  last  twelve 
months  is  amazing.  Official  opposition  to 
the  conservation  movement,  whatever  dam- 
age it  has  done  or  still  threatens  to  the 
public  interest,  has  vastly  strengthened  the 
grasp  of  conservation  upon  the  minds  and 
consciences  of  our  people.  Efforts  to  ob- 
scure or  belittle  the  issue  have  only  served 
to  make  it  larger  and  clearer  in  the 
public  estimation.  The  conservation  move- 
ment cannot  be  checked  by  the  baseless 
charge  that  it  will  prevent  development, 
or  that  every  man  who  tells  the  plain 
truth  is  either  a  muck-raker  or  a  dema- 
gogue.    It   has   taken    firm    hold    on    our 

[132] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

national  moral  sense,  and  when  an  issue 
does  that  it  has  won. 

The  conservation  issue  is  a  moral  issue, 
and  the  heart  of  it  is  this:  For  whose  benefit 
shall  our  natural  resources  be  conserved  — 
for  the  benefit  of  us  all,  or  for  the  use  and 
profit  of  the  few  ?  This  truth  is  so  obvious 
and  the  question  itself  so  simple  that  the 
attitude  toward  conservation  of  any  man  in 
public  or  private  life  indicates  his  stand  in 
the  fight  for  public  rights. 

All  monopoly  rests  on  the  unregulated 
control  of  natural  resources  and  natural 
advantages,  and  such  control  by  the  special 
interests  is  impossible  without  the  help  of 
politics.  The  alliance  between  business  and 
politics  is  the  most  dangerous  thing  in  our 
political  life.  It  is  the  snake  that  we  must 
kill.  The  special  interests  must  get  out  of 
politics,  or  the  American  people  will  put 
them  out  of  business.  There  is  no  third 
course. 

Because  the  special  interests  are  in  politics, 

[133] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

we  as  a  Nation  have  lost  confidence  in  Con- 
gress. This  is  a  serious  statement  to  make, 
but  it  is  true.  It  does  not  apply,  of  course, 
to  the  men  who  really  represent  their  con- 
stituents and  who  are  making  so  fine  a  fight 
for  the  conservation  of  self-government.  As 
soon  as  these  men  have  won  their  battle 
and  consolidated  their  victory,  confidence 
in  Congress  will  return. 

But  in  the  meantime  the  people  of  the 
United  States  believe  that,  as  a  whole,  the 
Senate  and  the  House  no  longer  represent 
the  voters  by  whom  they  were  elected,  but 
the  special  interests  by  whom  they  are  con- 
trolled. They  believe  so  because  they  have 
so  often  seen  Congress  reject  what  the  people 
desire,  and  do  instead  what  the  interests 
demand.  And  of  this  there  could  be  no 
better  illustration  than  the  tariff. 

The  tariff,  under  the  policy  of  protection, 
was  originally  a  means  to  raise  the  rate  of 
wages.  It  has  been  made  a  tool  to  increase 
the  cost  of  living.     The  wool  schedule,  pro- 

[134] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

fessing  to  protect  the  wool-grower,  is  found 
to  result  in  sacrificing  grower  and  consumer 
alike  to  one  of  the  most  rapacious  of 
trusts. 

The  cotton  cloth  schedule  was  increased 
in  the  face  of  the  uncontradicted  public 
testimony  of  the  manufacturers  themselves 
that  it  ought  to  remain  unchanged. 

The  Steel  interests  by  a  trick  secured  an 
indefensible  increase  in  the  tariff  on  struct- 
ural steel. 

The  Sugar  Trust  stole  from  the  Govern- 
ment like  a  petty  thief,  yet  Congress,  by 
means  of  a  dishonest  schedule,  continues  to 
protect  it  in  bleeding  the  public. 

At  the  very  time  the  duties  on  manu- 
factured rubber  were  being  raised,  the  leader 
of  the  Senate,  in  company  with  the  Guggen- 
heim Syndicate,  was  organizing  an  inter- 
national rubber  trust,  whose  charter  made  it 
also  a  holding  company  for  the  coal  and 
copper  deposits  of  the  whole  world. 

For    a    dozen   years    the   demand    of  the 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

Nation  for  the  Pure  Food  and  Drug  bill  was 
outweighed  in  Congress  by  the  interests 
which  asserted  their  right  to  poison  the 
people  for  a  profit. 

Congress  refused  to  authorize  the  prep- 
aration of  a  great  plan  of  waterway  develop- 
ment in  the  general  interest,  and  for  ten 
years  has  declined  to  pass  the  Appalachian 
and  White  Mountain  National  Forest  bill, 
although  the  people  are  practically  unanimous 
for  both. 

The  whole  Nation  is  in  favor  of  protect- 
ing the  coal  and  other  natural  resources  in 
Alaska,  yet  they  are  still  in  grave  danger 
of  being  absorbed  by  the  special  interests. 
And  as  for  the  general  conservation  move- 
ment, Congress  not  only  refused  to  help  it 
on,  but  tried  to  forbid  any  progress  with- 
out its  help.  Fortunately  for  us  all,  in  this 
attempt  it  has  utterly  failed. 

This  loss  of  confidence  in  Congress  is  a 
matter  for  deep  concern  to  every  thinking 
American.     It    has    not    come    quickly    or 

[136] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

without  good  reason.  Every  man  who  knows 
Congress  well  knows  the  names  of  Sena- 
tors and  members  who  betray  the  people 
they  were  elected  to  represent,  and  knows 
also  the  names  of  the  masters  whom  they 
obey.  A  representative  of  the  people  who 
wears  the  collar  of  the  special  interests  has 
touched  bottom.     He  can  sink  no  farther. 

Who  is  to  blame  because  representatives 
of  the  people  are  so  commonly  led  to  betray 
their  trust  ?  We  all  are  —  we  who  have 
not  taken  the  trouble  to  resent  and  put  an 
end  to  the  knavery  we  knew  was  going  on. 
The  brand  of  politics  served  out  to  us  by 
the  professional  politician  has  long  been 
composed  largely  of  hot  meals  for  the  interests 
and  hot  air  for  the  people,  and  we  have  all 
known  it. 

Political  platforms  are  not  sincere  state- 
ments of  what  the  leaders  of  a  party  really 
believe,  but  rather  forms  of  words  which 
those  leaders  think  they  can  get  others  to 
believe   they   believe.     The   realities   of  the 

[137] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

regular  political  game  lie  at  present  far 
beneath  the  surface;  many  of  the  issues 
advanced  are  mere  empty  sound;  while 
the  issues  really  at  stake  must  be  sought 
deep  down  in  the  politics  of  business  —  in 
politics  for  revenue  only.  All  this  the  people 
realize  as  they  never  did  before,  and,  what  is 
more,  they  are  ready  to  act  on  their  knowl- 
edge. 

Some  of  the  men  who  are  responsible  for 
the  union  of  business  and  politics  may  be 
profoundly  dishonest,  but  more  of  them  are 
not.  They  were  trained  in  a  wrong  school, 
and  they  cannot  forget  their  training.  Clay 
hardens  by  immobility  —  men's  minds  by 
standing  pat.  Both  lose  the  power  to  take 
new  impressions.  Many  of  the  old-style 
leaders  regard  the  political  truths  which 
alone  insure  the  progress  of  the  Nation,  and 
will  hereafter  completely  dominate  it,  as  the 
mere  meaningless  babble  of  political  infants. 
They  have  grown  old  in  the  belief  that  money 
has  the  right  to  rule,  and  they  can  never 
[138] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

understand  the  point  of  view  of  the  men 
who  recognize  in  the  corrupt  political  ac- 
tivity of  a  i;^ilroad  or  a  trust  a  most  dan- 
gerous kind  of  treason  to  government  by  the 
people. 

When  party  leaders  go  wrong,  it  requires 
a  high  sense  of  public  duty,  true  courage,  and 
a  strong  belief  in  the  people  for  a  man  in 
politics  to  take  his  future  in  his  hands  and 
stand  against  them. 

The  black  shadow  of  party  regularity  as 
the  supreme  test  in  public  affairs  has  passed 
away  from  the  public  mind.  It  is  a  great 
deliverance.  The  man  in  the  street  no 
longer  asks  about  a  measure  or  a  policy 
merely  whether  it  is  good  Republican  or 
good  Democratic  doctrine.  Now  he  asks 
whether  it  is  honest,  and  means  what  it  says, 
whether  it  will  promote  the  public  interest, 
weaken  special  privilege,  and  help  to  give 
every  man  a  fair  chance.  If  it  will,  it  is 
good,  no  matter  who  proposed  it.  If  it  will 
not,  it  is  bad,  no  matter  who  defends  it. 

[139] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

It  is  a  greater  thing  to  be  a  good  citizen 
than  to  be  a  good  Republican  or  a  good 
Democrat. 

The  protest  against  politics  for  revenue 
only  is  as  strong  in  one  party  as  in  the  other, 
for  the  servants  of  the  interests  are  plentiful 
in  both.  In  that  respect  there  is  little  to 
chose  between  them. 

Differences  of  purpose  and  belief  between 
political  parties  to-day  are  vastly  less  than 
the  differences  within  the  parties.  The 
great  gulf  of  division  which  strikes  across 
our  whole  people  pays  little  heed  to  fading 
party  lines,  or  to  any  distinction  in  name 
only.  The  vital  separation  is  between  the 
partisans  of  government  by  money  for  profit 
and  the  believers  in  government  by  men  for 
human  welfare. 

When  political  parties  come  to  be  badly 
led,  when  their  leaders  lose  touch  with  the 
people,  when  their  object  ceases  to  be  ever}'- 
body's  welfare  and  becomes  somebody's 
profit,  it  is  time  to  change  the  leaders.  One 
[140  J 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

of  the  most  significant  facts  of  the  time  is  that 
the  professional  politicians  appear  to  be 
wholly  unaware  of  the  great  moral  change 
which  has  come  over  political  thinking  in  the 
last  decade.  They  fail  to  see  that  the  political 
dogmas,  the  political  slogans,  and  the  political 
methods  of  the  past  generation  have  lost 
their  power,  and  that  our  people  have  come 
at  last  to  judge  of  politics  by  the  eternal  rules 
of  right  and  wrong. 

A  new  life  is  stirring  among  the  dry  bones 
of  formal  platforms  and  artificial  issues. 
Morality  has  broken  into  politics.  Political 
leaders.  Trust-bred  and  Trust-fed,  find  it 
harder  and  harder  to  conceal  their  actual 
character.  The  brass-bound  collar  of  priv- 
ilege has  become  plain'  upon  their  necks  for 
all  men  to  see.  They  are  known  for  what 
they  are,  and  their  time  is  short.  But  when 
they  come  to  be  retired  it  will  be  of  little  use 
to  replace  an  unfaithful  public  servant  who 
wears  the  collar  by  another  public  servant 
with  the  same  collar  around  his  neck.  Above 
[141] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

all,  what  we  need  in  every  office  is  free  men 
representing  a  free  people. 

The  motto  in  every  primary  —  in  every 
election  —  should  be  this:  No  watch-dogs 
of  the  Interests  need  apply. 

The  old  order,  standing  pat  in  dull  failure 
to  sense  the  great  forward  sweep  of  a 
nation  determined  on  honesty  and  pub- 
licity in  public  affairs,  is  already  wearing 
thin  under  the  ceaseless  hammering  of  the 
progressive  onset.  The  demand  of  the  people 
for  political  progress  will  not  be  denied. 
Does  any  man,  not  blinded  by  personal 
interest  or  by  the  dust  of  political  dry  rot, 
suppose  that  the  bulk  of  our  people  are  any- 
thing else  but  progressive  ?  If  such  there 
be,  let  him  ask  the  young  men,  in  whose 
minds  the  policies  of  to-morrow  first  see  the 
light. 

The  people  of  the  United  States  demand 
a  new  deal  and  a  square  deal.  They  have 
grasped  the  fact  that  the  special  interests 
are  now  in  control  of  public  affairs.     They 

[142] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

have  decided  once  more  to  take  control  of 
their  own  business.  For  the  last  ten  years 
the  determination  to  do  so  has  been  swelling 
like  a  river.  They  insist  that  the  special 
interests  shall  go  out  of  politics  or  out  of 
business  —  one  or  the  other.  And  the  choice 
will  lie  with  the  interests  themselves.  If 
they  resist,  both  the  interests  and  the  people 
will  suffer.  If  wisely  they  accept  the  inevi- 
table, the  adjustment  will  not  be  hard.  It 
will  do  their  business  no  manner  of  harm  to 
make  it  conform  to  the  general  welfare. 
But  one  way  or  the  other,  conform  it  must. 
The  overshadowing  question  before  the 
American  people  to-day  is  this:  Shall  the 
Nation  govern  itself  or  shall  the  interests 
run  this  country .?  The  one  great  political 
demand,  underlying  all  others,  giving  mean- 
ing to  all  others,  is  this:  The  special  inter- 
ests must  get  out  of  politics.  The  old-style 
leaders,  seeking  to  switch  public  attention 
away  from  this  one  absorbing  and  over- 
whelming issue  are  pitifully  ridiculous  and 

[143I 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

out  of  date.  To  try  to  divert  the  march  of 
an  aroused  public  conscience  from  this 
righteous  inevitable  conflict  by  means  of 
obsolete  political  catchwords  is  like  trying 
to  dam  the  Mississippi  with  dead  leaves. 

To  drive  the  special  interests  out  of  politics 
is  a  vast  undertaking,  for  in  politics  lies  their 
strength.  If  they  resist,  as  doubtless  they 
will,  it  will  call  for  nerve,  endurance,  and 
sacrifice  on  the  part  of  the  people.  It  will 
be  no  child's  play,  for  the  power  of  privilege 
is  great.  But  the  power  of  our  people  is 
greater  still,  and  their  steadfastness  is  equal 
to  the  need.  The  task  is  a  tremendous  one, 
both  in  the  demands  it  will  make  and  the 
rewards  it  will  bring.  It  must  be  under-, 
taken  soberly,  carried  out  firmly  and  justly, 
and  relentlessly  followed  to  the  very  end. 
Two  things  alone  can  bring  success.  The 
first  is  honesty  in  public  men,  without  which 
no  popular  government  can  long  succeed. 
The  second  is  complete  publicity  of  all  the 
affairs  in  which  the  public  has  an  interest, 

[144I 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

such  as  the  business  of  corporations  and 
political  expenses  during  campaigns  and 
between  them.  To  these  ends,  many 
unfaithful  public  servants  must  be  retired, 
much  wise  legislation  must  be  framed  and 
passed,  and  the  struggle  will  be  bitter  and 
long.  But  it  will  be  well  worth  all  it  will 
cost,  for  self-government  is  at  stake. 

There  can  be  no  legislative  cure-all  for 
great  political  evils,  but  legislation  can  make 
easier  the  effective  expression  and  execution 
of  the  popular  will.  One  step  in  this  direc- 
tion, which  I  personally  believe  should  be 
taken  without  delay,  is  a  law  forbidding  any 
Senator  or  Member  of  Congress  or  other 
public  servant  to  perform  any  services  for 
any  corporation  engaged  in  interstate  com- 
merce, or  to  accept  any  valuable  considera- 
tion, directly  or  indirectly,  from  any  such 
corporation,  while  he  is  a  representative  of 
the  people,  and  for  a  reasonable  time  there- 
after. If  such  a  law  would  be  good  for  the 
Nation  in  its  affairs,  a  similar  law  should 

1 145] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

be  good  for  the  States  and  the  cities  in  their 
affairs.  And  I  see  no  reason  why  Members 
and  Senators  and  State  Legislators  should 
not  keep  the  people  informed  of  their  pecu- 
niary interest  in  interstate  or  public  service 
corporations,  if  they  have  any.  It  is  certain 
such  publicity  v^ould  do  the  public  no  harm. 

This  Nation  has  decided  to  do  away  with 
government  by  money  for  profit  and  return 
to  the  government  our  forefathers  died  for 
and  gave  to  us  —  government  by  men  for 
human  welfare  and  human  progress. 

Opposition  to  progress  has  produced  its 
natural  results.  There  is  profound  dis- 
satisfaction and  unrest,  and  profound  cause 
for  both.  Yet  the  result  is  good,  for  at 
last  the  country  is  awake.  For  a  generation 
at  least  there  has  not  been  a  situation 
so  promising  for  the  ultimate  public  wel- 
fare as  that  of  to-day.  Our  people  are 
like  a  hive  of  bees,  full  of  agitation  before 
taking  flight  to  a  better  place.  Also  they 
are  ready  to  sting.  Out  of  the  whole  situa- 
[146] 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  CONSERVATION 

tion  shines  the  confident  hope  of  better  things. 
If  any  man  is  discouraged,  let  him  consider 
the  rise  of  cleaner  standards  in  this  country 
within  the  last  ten  years. 

The  task  of  translating  these  new  stand- 
ards into  action  lies  before  us.  From  sea 
to  sea  the  people  are  taking  a  fresh  grip  on 
their  own  affairs.  The  conservation  of 
political  liberty  will  take  its  proper  place 
alongside  the  conservation  of  the  means  of 
living,  and  in  both  we  shall  look  to  the 
permanent  welfare  by  the  plain  people  as 
the  supreme  end.  The  way  out  lies  in 
direct  interest  by  the  people  in  their  own 
affairs  and  direct  action  in  the  few  great 
things  that  really  count. 

What  is  the  conclusion  of  the  whole  mat- 
ter ?  The  special  interests  must  be  put  out 
of  politics.  I  believe  the  young  men  will 
do  it. 


INDEX 


American  Revolution,  Economic  Results  of,  127; 
Daughters  of,   105. 

Better  Times  on  the  Farm,  31. 

Business  and  Politics,  Unholy  Alliance,  114. 

Business  Problem,  A,  71. 

Children  and  Patriotism,  107. 

Citizenship  and  Public  Spirit,  95. 

Civilization,  Essentials  of,  123. 

Coal,  Resources,  6;  Waste  in  Mining,  7;  Necessity  of 
Civilization,  43;    Control  of,  82. 

Congress,  Loss  of  Confidence  in,  136. 

Conservation,  Means  Prosperity,  3;  of  Public  Lands, 
II;  Nation's  first  duty,  20;  Principles  of,  40;  Mis- 
conceptions about,  42  ;  and  the  Future,  43  ;  First 
Principle  of,  43;  Covers  Wide  Field,  48;  and  Com- 
mon Sense,  49;  of  Waterways,  53;  President  Roose- 
velt's Views,  59;  a  Business  Problem,  71 ;  Key-note 
of,  72  ;  Foresight,  72  ;  Welfare  of  Average  Man, 
80;  a  Democratic  Movement,  81,  87;  Danger  to, 
82;  Woman's  Work  for,  loi;  and  Patriotism,  102; 
Economic  Side  of,  126. 

Corporations,  Strategy  of,  115. 

Cost  of  Living,  Increase  of,  110. 

Country  Life,  Problem  of,  38. 

Daughters  of  American  Revolution,  105. 
Department  of  Agriculture,  Scope  of,  35 
149 


I50  INDEX 

Destruction,  Period  of,  74. 
Dividends  for  the  People,  66. 

Education,  Object  of,  32. 

Efficiency,  National,  86;    Lack  of  Tradition  of,  92. 
Equal  Opportunity,  24;  109;    The  Real  Issue,  26. 
Erosion,  Losses  from,  124;    Soil,  9. 

Farmer,   Backbone  of  the  Nation,  22;    Organization 

and  Cooperation,  33. 
Farms,  Abandonment  of,  38. 
Foresight,  A  Conservation  Principle,  72. 
Forestry,    Beginning    of     Conservation,     40;     Leads 

Conservation  Fight,  40;    Pennsylvania  Association, 

Forests,  Duration  of  Supply,  14;   Perils  of  Exhaustion, 

15,   74;      Fires,   Control  of,  45;      and   Rivers,   53; 

Minnesota  National,  106. 
Forest  Service,  Value  to  the  West,  51;  and  the  Law, 

56,    117;    Powers  of,  61 ;      Attacks  on,    Ii6;    and 

Publicity,   119. 
Franchises,  Limits  on,  66. 
Future,  Disregard  of,  126;  and  Conservation,  43. 

Golden  Rule  and  Politics,  iu. 
Governors,  Convention  of,  41. 
Grazing,  Evils  of  Overgrazing,  10. 

Home-building  for  the  Nation,  21. 

Ireland,   Agricultural    Cooperation    in,   36. 
Iron  Ore,  8. 

Irrigation,  Value  of,  21;    Better  Times  on  the  Farm, 
31- 

Land  Hunger,  93. 

Law,  Not  Absolute,  25;  Forest  Service  and  the,  56,  I17. 


INDEX  151 

Marshall,  Chief  Justice,  Opinion,  62. 

Mineral  Fuels,  Waste  of,  7,  124. 

Mining,  Wastes  in,  8. 

Minnesota  National  Forests,  106. 

Mississippi,  Plan  for  Development  of,  55. 

Monopoly,  of  Water  Power,  64;  of  Natural  Resources, 

81. 
Moral  Issues  Involved,  79,  133. 

Nation,  Preservation  of,  77;  Conservation  first  duty  of, 

20;    Home-building  for  the,  21. 
Natural  Resources,  Development  of,  48;    Water,  18; 

Monopolization    of,    Moral  Wrong,  81;     Belong  to 

the  People,  104;   Pillage  of,  128. 

Overgrazing,  Evils  of,  10. 

Patriotism  and  Conservation,  102;    Children    and, 

107;   A  New,    120. 
Pennsylvania  Forestry  Association,  105. 
Pittsburg  Survey,   112. 
Politics,  Golden  Rule  and,  iii;     Protest  Against  for 

Revenue  only,  140. 
Population,  Forecast  of,  4. 
Private  Interests,  Water  Power  and,  82. 
Property  and  Voting  Power,  114. 
Prosperity,  The  Basis  of,  3;    Destruction  of,  74. 
Publicity,  Forest  Service  and,  119. 
Public  Lands,  Conservation  of,  ii;     Evils  of  Present 

System,  12;    Menace  of  Tenantry,  13. 
Public  Morality,  New  Standard,  91. 

Public  Spirit,  Fostering  of,  89;  Roosevelt  and,  96;  and 
the  "Bosses,"  98;    and  Citizenship,  95. 

Resources,  Not  Inexhaustible,  5. 
Rivers  and  Forests,  53;    Unit  from  Source  to  Mouth, 
54. 


152  INDEX 

Roosevelt,  President,  Home-making  Policy,  ii; 
Message,  24;  The  Common  People,  29;  and  Con- 
servation, 59;  Thanks  due  to,  91;  and  Young  Men, 
94;   Policies,  The,  1 10;  and   Public  Spirit,  115. 

Soil  Erosion,  9. 

Special  Privileges,  Danger  of,  82,  no;  Victims  of 
Grab  System,  113;  Must  be  Driven  out  of  Politics, 

143- 
Square  Deal,  Doctrine  of,  69. 
Success,  Conditions  of,  99. 

Tariff,  a  Tool  to  Increase  Cost  of  Living,  134,  135. 
Tenantry  vs.  Freehold,    Menace  to    Public   Lands, 

13- 

United  States,  Destiny  of,  121;  Crisis  and  History  of, 
122. 

Voting  Power,  Property  and,  114. 

Waste,  Prevention  of,  45;  in  Mining  Coal,  7;  Period  of 
Destruction,  74. 

Water-Power  Trust,  27;  Monopoly,  64;  and  Private 
Capital,  66;  Grants  in  Perpetuity,  66;  and  Private 
Interests,  82;    Control  of,  84;    Sites,  85. 

Water  Resources,  18. 

Waterways,   Development  of,  54,    136;    Conservation 

of,  53- 
Woman's  Work  for  Conservation,  ioi. 


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